Secret Sex
by erinbatt
Summary: Edward and Bella have a little secret...or so they think. A friendship that evolves into a very sweet love story. If only anyone knew about it... AH / Canon pairings.
1. Prologue: Walking Sex

Hey guys, this is just a fun little one-shot for a fun little blog... http:/weeklywankward(dot)blogspot(dot)com/

Enjoy pervs! (like you won't)

*snicker*

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Fuck. I was in serious trouble and I knew it. Bella looked like sex as she walked off the plane and across the terminal to where I stood waiting. Normally this wouldn't be much of a problem at all. I'd take her in a bathroom, in my car, in the fucking lobby if they'd let me. The urgency that she stirred spilling out of me in a desperate need to consume her... but this time she had my entire family in tow. They had come to offer up their support in the final weeks of my doctorial dissertation and life in New York. The problem was that...well...no one _actually_ knew that Bella and I had been fucking each other since high school.

Bella's mother and my mother had been best friends. Renee died seventeen years ago, leaving Bella in the hands of her means-well-but-not-so-capable father Charlie. Given Charlie's long and random hours as the Police Chief of the Podunk town we grew up in, Bella often found herself at my house as a kid. And then, as a teen, in my bed. It never stopped. We never tried to.

A slow smile spread across my face as they approached, and I couldn't stop the thoughts of me and Bella together in bed. My family mistakenly confused my huge smirk as a warm greeting, hugging me and slapping me on the back. I _was _incredibly glad to see them. My mother, father, little sister Alice, and big bro Emmett had all taken time out of their chaotic lives, along with Bella, to come and help me pack up and move myself back home. Honestly, they were a great family, and I knew that I was beyond fortunate to have them come to my aid. Unfortunately, it seemed that my dick was making other, less than PG, plans for the evening.

I tried to focus on the words my mother was saying, and the comedic commentary Emmett was yapping about, but my dick was twitching and my balls squeezed at the sight of Bella. She was always so fucking good at acting nonchalant around me, when it took me every morsel of my control to not ravage her on the spot.

Those fucking skin-tight, see-through lace leggings were certainly _not _helping my dick-twitching situation any. I knew she did that shit on purpose too, wearing things she knew would test my nearly non-existent restraint. She quirked her eyebrow as she spoke with Alice. She raked her fingers "innocently" through her long, mahogany hair, drawing my eyes to the movement and creating a burning need for those to be my fingers tangled and tugging on her locks. My eyes drifted down her entire body slowly, noticing every detail with precision and familiarity. When I got to the sliver of pale porcelain skin that peeked out from the gap between her tight, black concert tee and those damned leggings, my fingers twitched with the very real need to reach out and wrap them around her hips. To feel the smooth silk of her body pressed against mine.

And those fucking heels. God! Black with hot pink soles underneath – imported Italian Prada's, _not _Louboutin's like everyone always thought. I had no idea why I knew such trivial shit, and I was pretty sure I lost ten fucking points on the man-scale for knowing it. But with a sister like Alice, always yammering in my ear, it was just the kind of useless shit I picked up on. Whatever the reason, I didn't care what fucking brand they were, I wanted to use them as handlebars.

_I'll take my ten points back__, thank you. _

Twitch.

The car ride back to my apartment was excruciating. With every laugh, movement or fucking breath my dick pulsed. It had been years since we had been with anyone but one another. Why the hell we didn't just properly out ourselves was beyond me. Although, if I was being honest, the secret sex game was kind of fun, in a really fucking hot sort of way.

Not ten minutes into arriving at my apartment and I had to excuse myself to my bedroom under the guise of changing for our evening out together. As I turned to walk away, I shot Bella a glance that told her under no certain terms was she to remain in the fucking living room, packing and laughing over photo albums.

_My room, now! _

Logically, there wasn't much we could do with my entire family two rooms away…but reasoning with a raging hard-on was vastly ineffective.

I had barely even opened the door to my ensuite before I heard her handlebar heels clicking lightly on the hardwood behind me. I spun around and found her standing in front of me, all heavy lidded and panting.

_Fuck, baby, I haven't even touched you yet. _I snickered with arrogance at her until my dick began to throb painfully in the increasingly tight confines of my jeans, reminding me that she had a very similar effect on me.

I knew it from the moment I first took her over ten years ago. She was heaven and hell all wrapped into one deliciously sweet package. I licked my lips just thinking about _how _sweet. Bella was going to be my undoing, of that I was certain.

As it was, she was standing inches from me. I could smell her – feel the familiar electricity rolling off of her and humming through me. The edge of the vanity behind me dug into my ass as I leaned back against it, staring into Bella's endless, dark eyes. With a practiced expertise, I read the lust, the longing, the need, and the urgency that swam around in them, mirroring all my own desires.

She reached up without saying a word and grabbed the back of my hair, driving me closer to her, feeling me against her. A needy moan slipped through her lips and vibrated over mine. My dick reacted. It was an iron fucking rod and I needed to find some form of release before I broke down into a pile of tears from the agony.

I spun around, grabbing her ass like I had wanted to do since I first saw her strut her shit down the airport terminal in those tight fucking pants, _if you could even call them that_. I squeezed the beautiful handful of flesh, and then rather unceremoniously, whipped her around and switched positions with her. Knowing we had minutes, if that, before someone wondered what we were doing, I bent her over the vanity in the bathroom and yanked down those goddamn leggings. Jamming my knee in between hers, I shoved her legs apart wide, causing her to gasp loudly. It was so fucking sexy.

I met her eyes in the reflection of the glass, widening mine in a silent reprimand despite enjoying the sound. She needed to shut the fuck up unless she thought outing us this way was a good fucking idea…which I kind of did not.

Despite the fact that my cock felt like it was going to rupture, I took a second to appreciate the woman bent over and sprawled out in front of me – so trusting, so understanding, and so needy – as I released my appreciative dick from its denim torture chamber. With one hand wrapped around myself and the other splayed out across Bella's breastbone, holding her in position, I teased her entrance a bit with the head of my cock. Fuck, she was so wet for me.

_I do this to you, _I narrowed my eyes at her in the reflection. She knew what I was thinking. She bit her bottom lip in response in a way that she knew drove me fucking insane with need. She lightly nodded her head and moaned a low, impatient whimper. I couldn't take the teasing anymore myself. I plunged into her without warning, holding her body firmly in place between me and the counter top.

I filled her, stretched her, felt her, and consumed her.

_Fuck__. _

That initial moment of being sheathed entirely by Bella, that was a glimpse of heaven. The hell was to try and not blow my fucking load instantly. Not so easy. Bella was amazing. Being inside Bella…there were truly no words. Just sensations. Sensations with no descriptions. Fucking fantastic. Liquid warmth washed over me, delicious and addicting.

I slammed into her almost violently, pulling her toward me as she scampered her hands across the vanity, searching for something to anchor herself on. Ceramic soap dishes and toothbrush holders went scattering across the countertop and into the sink, clanking loudly. The burn inside my belly was building and swirling wildly as my balls begged to release. I leaned over her, pressing my chest against her back, wishing like hell there weren't so many goddamn barriers between us. I longed to feel the tingly fire that ignited over us when our bodies made direct contact. I groaned lowly in her ear, both from the thought and from how tight this new angle made her around me. I sucked at the sweet little spot behind her ear, needing her to come hard and quick before she walked away sorely disappointed – because whether or not she came, I was about to do.

All sorts of unintelligible mutterings left my mouth as I whispered in her ear, licking and nipping along her neck and shoulder, wishing I had access to more exposed skin – never relenting the continuous thrusting in and out of her. I was forced to slow my pace; it had been all of two minutes and I was going to come before her if I didn't. As much as I needed my own release, I loved this woman in ways that I at times struggled to acknowledge even to myself because the sheer depths of my emotions scared the shit out of me. I desperately wanted her to climax; she deserved it.

I raised the palm that was spread out on her chest and drug it across her collarbone and over her shoulder, knowing that like her touch on my skin, any contact elicited a fiery trail of intense sensation. I left my hand on her shoulder, my fingers wrapping lightly around the side of her neck, my thumb rubbing small, soft circles around the shell of her ear.

The slow pace really seemed to be working for her, but just as she was beginning to tighten around me beautifully, indicating that my own glorious release was impending... my sister's voice came from somewhere out in the main room.

"Bella? Are you okay? What was that noise? Where are you?" It was obvious Alice was poking her head in and out of all the rooms in the flat looking for Bella, her annoyance at not finding her evident in her tone. Our eyes locked in the mirror, my panting noises sounding alarmingly loud over the ensuing stillness in the room.

"Fuck," Bella muttered, shoving herself away from the countertop. My eyes grew impossibly wide in horror.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" I whisper-yelled at her as she stood and straightened out her top, pulling it back down over her leggings. She smiled apologetically and whispered, "Later," before winking, turning, and dragging her little fingertips across the exposed skin of my lower back and ass as she left the room.

I actually had to sit down on the edge of the bathtub because my quivering fucking needy legs almost gave out on me. I was still holding my iron hard cock in the palm of my hand with my jeans in a puddle, tangled at my ankles. I stared baffled at the bathroom door after she closed it. My entire family was on the other side of the door. It was a very small apartment. I looked down at the cock in my hands... _It is a very hard cock. _

Well fuck; there was no way I could walk out there like that. Slowly, I began working my palm up and down over the shaft, still slick from being inside Bella. I wished it was her. I wondered idly if anyone would notice if I just stuck my head out the door and asked if I could borrow Bella for like...twelve fucking seconds.

_Stroke__ up, slow stroke down. _

Pants around my ankles and sweat beaded across my forehead... yeah, I'm sure that would go over nicely after all these years of hiding our extracurriculars.

_Stroke, swirl, stroke. _

I squeezed my eyes shut and thought about how tonight, after mom and dad had gone off to the luxury hotel they love to stay in while in town, and Al and Em crashed in my empty roommate's beds, Bella would sneak into my room. I made a mental note to demand that she bring those fucking heels.

_Stroke up, swirl, shudder, down..._

I moved my other hand to the base of my shaft, pinching and rubbing as the I made slow, continuous, burning passages up and down its length. I was killing myself. Panting and still fantasizing about having Bella spread eagle at the edge of my bed in those heels, with her legs in the air and my fingers wrapped tightly around the thin heel. I stroked a little harder, a little faster.

Or maybe, spread wide and naked, pressed against the huge picture window in my bedroom - still wearing the "fuckme" heels of course.

_Harder, faster, swirl, pinch, up, down. _

Fuck, I was even lifting my hips up off the hard cold edge of the bathtub to meet my palm greedily. I picked up the pace until I felt the first wave of release pump through me. I slowed down my movements until it was almost painful, milking myself for all I had.

I came violently, shooting hot streams all over my clenched fist, the bathtub, and on the jeans that still bound my ankles together as I muttered a long string of profanities way too loudly. I shuddered and continued to ride the last bit of the orgasm out as I opened my eyes, blinked stupidly, and held onto my now gloriously semi-limp dick.

_Thank Christ. _I changed quickly and exited my bedroom. Bella was quick to meet my gaze, a cross between amusement and angry jealousy writhing behind her narrowed eyes.

_Yeah, __that's right baby, how's that wet little burn in between your legs feeling now? Because mine is much better, thank you for asking. _

I smirked at her. Then I looked up. Four other pairs of incredulous eyes were glaring at me, some with humour, some with admonishment, and some with a combination of the two.

"What?" I sneered at them all.

Emmett scoffed. "Bro, we aren't as dumb as we look." He laughed and went about throwing cd's roughly into a box.

Beside him Alice snorted and shook her head at him. My father's eyes flashed with something that was obviously amusement at my expense.

Taken aback, I looked to Bella. She blushed crimson, bit her beautiful, fucking lip, and turned away to continue packing books. Everyone but me giggled a little stiffly.

_So much for secret sex. _

_

* * *

_THANKS!

Practicing my smut for later chapters in A Chance Encounter...thoughts?

~xox~


	2. The Beginning

Well, well, well...lookey here...

IKR?!?! One/shot....gah! *throws hands up*

I am succumbing to the peer pressure (you assholes know who you are, lmao)

Also, I really just kind of like how fun these kids are and the sticky mess *snicker* that they have created for themselves. So here is a bit more of their story. Enjoy the lemons.

~xox~

* * *

The big, huge fucking elephant sat in the room with us as we continued to throw random crap into boxes in silence. And by elephant, I of course meant the fact that every member of my immediate family seemed to know exactly what kind of depraved acts transpired in the bathroom between Bella and …and myself. I shifted uncomfortably from where I was knelt on the floor in my bedroom organising nine years of notebooks and chaos into file folders. The elephant sat in a lazy-boy sipping from a fruity cocktail and smirking at me over the umbrella. I grumbled under my breath, slamming the heavy metal drawer shut. It clanged loudly, the noise echoing in the nearly empty apartment.

"Come now, don't be such poor sport," Bella's soft, mocking voice greeted me from the doorway. She leaned against the doorjamb, twirling a long piece of hair between her little fingers. I glared at her.

"A poor sport?" I spat, annoyed at her modest choice in terminology. "Are you going to tell me exactly what the hell happened out there in the two minutes you were by yourself with them?"

"We're not kids anymore, Edward, they hardly care." Bella rolled her eyes dramatically. She stared at the floor, suddenly very interested in a scuff that she was rubbing at with the toe of her shoe. Her face flamed a delicious shade of red and I knew she was faking it, _she cared. _My mood shifted instantly from annoyance to a need to comfort her. That was what I did; I protected Bella, from _almost_ everything. I was somehow unable to protect her from myself.

I jumped up and went to her, laying my palms against her burning cheeks. I tilted her face upward to meet my eyes. She tried to look away, but I dropped my head to meet her gaze. With my thumb rubbing comforting little circles on her cheeks, I dipped down and placed a small, tender kiss just beside it on her cheek. It was an almost innocent little peck, which perhaps lingered a bit long, as my family pretended not to be watching the display from their place behind Bella in the living room.

I scoffed and stared deep into her eyes as she tried to squirm from my grip. "You're right," I began, "we aren't kids anymore. And it isn't as if they know when or how this whole thing began." I was whispering so that no one but Bella could hear me, despite how thoroughly I sensed they were all straining to try. Her cheeks grew impossibly redder, which of course made me laugh louder. Which of course drew more attention. The elephant cocked its head to the side, deeply intrigued.

*

"This party blows." Bella collapsed gracelessly onto the step at the foot of the stairwell next to me, whatever liquid was in her red plastic cup sloshed over the rim and onto the carpet, splattering on my shoes. I scowled at her and wiped my shoe off. "Pretty boy," she muttered, mock-glaring at me.

Bella was my best friend. Our mothers had been best friends. I was three months old and in the room the moment Isabella Marie Swan came into the world. I could honestly say that I have loved her from the moment she took her very first breath. Or at least, I was sure I did, even back then. I wasn't really sure when things shifted between us, everything was so gradual and subtle. All I knew was that at the beginning of our junior year, Mike "douche bag" Newton asked Bella to a dance, and to my horror, She acquiesced.

I didn't attend said dance because I had enough of dodging fake girls and their over-aggressive-pretending-to-be-coy cock grabbing attempts during regular school hours. I would be fucking damned if I was going to subject myself to that shit after school. So, the night of the dance, I sat on the couch in the front room of my house playing video games with Jasper, my little sister's new boyfriend. I was decimating him in Halo. I liked the guy and gave him my silent permission to stick around for a bit. Just as long as he continued to suck balls at video games, since Emmett always kicked my ass…I figured that shit had to balance out somehow.

The clicking of heels and the high-pitched, annoying squealing of excited teenage girls descending the stairs caught our attention. We paused the game and spun around to see the girls making their way down just as the doorbell rang. I had to actually physically rub my jaw to keep it from dropping at the sight of Bella. She had on a short teal dress with panels that seemed to be sheer, displaying a hint of the pale skin beneath. She had on ridiculously tall black heels that did amazing things to her legs as she stepped off the final stair. I don't know how no one noticed me gawking, and possibly drooling, at the sight.

My father came from the kitchen to answer the door, eyes widening in horror as he saw his two girls, for all intents and purposes, standing there looking like they were asking for it - which I was silently praying to god neither of them were. While I fought the urge to run my fingertips along Bella's gloriously long legs, I likewise fought the urge to yell at Allie to go put on some fucking clothes. Honestly, girls these days!

My dad straightened out his shoulders and cleared his throat, looking regal in his suit, minus the jacket, having just come from the hospital. He opened the door and revealed the douche bag himself. My dad made polite talk with Mike for a minute while leaving him out on the porch. It was his subtle, yet effective way, of letting Mike know that just because Bella's real father Charlie seemed oblivious to all things teenager, Carlisle was not. He was going to be the one that Mike would be answering to if he misstepped with Bella. Fuck, I loved my dad. I smirked huge at the douche out on the porch holding a lame fucking corsage that I knew Bella would make fun of as soon as he turned his back.

At last my dad stepped aside. Mike whistled at Bella and went to kiss her on the cheek. In that moment…something unhinged in me. I watched with what had to have been a death stare as his disgusting lips grazed her porcelain cheek and I fought back the urge to shred him and vomit all at the same time. And I knew - I wanted to be allowed to touch her like that.

The months that followed were agony as I over analyzed everything. My feelings, her interactions with me, the way she regarded Mike. I nearly did a touch-down dance on the spot when I overheard her gossiping with Alice as I passed by her bedroom one day, saying that Mike kind of creeped her out and that she wished she never went to the dance with him. But where did that leave _me?_

Sitting on the stair at Jessica Stanley's lame ass fucking Christmas party, that was where. I looked over at Bella through the corner of my eye, smirking at her. "You think I'm pretty," I asked, looking serious but then let her off the hook with a wink. She blew out the breath she was holding and chugged back the remainder of whatever was in her cup. Rubbing alcohol from the smell of it. I picked at the label on my beer bottle for an awkward moment. I didn't know why the silence was so charged between us lately, it had never been like that before. Bella and I were inseparable; everyone knew that. We had been attached at the hip since birth. But lately, there were more and more of these quiet little moments where I would give my left nut to fucking be able to read her mind.

"If you think this party is so lame, then why are you still here," I asked, just trying to just fill the empty silence.

Bella bit at her lower lip, raking her teeth back and forth over the poor swollen flesh - which for some reason entirely mesmerized me. I stared until I realised she was looking at me with a quirked eyebrow. I snapped my eyes up at her and waited for her answer. She shook her head lightly; clearing whatever thought was in there. Again, I wouldn't know, because much to my great fucking inconvenience, I couldn't read minds.

"Charlie's working an over-nighter. He probably won't be home until, like, five in the morning or something," she muttered and shrugged. She absolutely hated being alone in her small, rickety house overnight when Charlie worked those kinds of shifts. Even though it was completely irrational given the teensy, nearly crime-free town we lived in. Still, I had to admit, I wasn't crazy about the idea either.

"I can go back with you if you want. We can watch a movie or something." The words escaped my mouth before I put any thought into them. It was an offer I would have proposed anytime, but something was so different lately. We no longer shared as much and we definitely weren't spending as much time together. Still, it should seem like a reasonable suggestion…I hoped.

"Yeh?" she asked, looking up at me, then back into her empty plastic cup. She seemed to debate for a moment, then obviously decided she was okay with my offer. I was one second away from being offended.

"Don't sound so fucking excited about it, Bella," I scoffed. "I'm just trying to be nice. If you prefer you can stay here and play topless poker with Mike and Tyler." I nodded to the dining room table to the left of me where Jessica was clearly thrilled with the game they were beginning to play. _Whores, _I thought crudely. Bella was unequivocally _not _in the same category as those girls.

She shoved my shoulder, driving me into the railings on the side of the stairs. I laughed at her and stood up, offering her my hand to help her up. It wasn't like _that; _it was just the nice kind of shit I did for Bella. Best friends, right? Plus, my mother Esme didn't raise me to be a total heathen. I grabbed her bag from the floor in the hallway and slung it over my shoulder and held open the front door for her.

I parked in her driveway in Charlie's spot, knowing he wasn't going to be home until the morning and that I would be gone by then. Bella fished for the spare key above the front door, balancing on her tippy toes and nearly falling backward in the process.

"Why don't you just make another copy and put one on your key ring, Bella? God, you are so lazy," I muttered, laughing at her as I placed my hands around her hips and shoved her aside so I could easily retrieve the key from its "hiding" place. When my fingers wrapped around her waist, the tips brushed the exposed skin between her raised shirt and her jeans as she reached up high over her head. A current of something warm and electrical ran from her to me and probably back again, judging from the faint gasp that came from her. I pretended to ignore it, confused as fuck, as I unlocked the door and replaced the key.

For all the passes girls made at me, I had an embarrassingly small amount of experience in the physical department. Some make-out sessions with a few idiot girls in our school and a couple stolen kisses from girls Emmett knew at the University he went to when I would visit him on weekends. Nothing major. I had certainly never had sex or even come close. I had no fucking clue what to make of the electricity that seemed to shock the shit out of me every time I made contact with Bella's sweet, silken skin.

I flipped through the pay-per-view movies on the digital box, sprawled out on the couch, while Bella was busy fumbling around in the kitchen. As I stared at the screen, debating between movies, I kept an ear out for any sign of catastrophe coming from behind me in the kitchen. Bella was a ridiculous klutz, and she could easily manage to maim herself making microwave popcorn. I chuckled to myself, stretching my legs out, resting my feet on the armrest at the far end of the old, lumpy couch.

Bella came around the front of the corner of the couch, her ratty old comforter from her bed draped over her arm and a bag of popcorn clutched between her fingers. I smiled eagerly, I fucking loved popcorn.

"Whatever you do, don't move or anything," she scoffed, glaring at me as I lay stretched out, consuming the entire couch. She sat the bag of popcorn on the coffee table, which I scooped up before her fingers had even fully let go of it, and she crawled on top of my feet. She wiggled herself down to the cushions of the couch, leaving my feet in her lap. I grinned, I had the popcorn, and I didn't care where she sat. She covered her legs up with the blanket and looked up at the TV screen.

"No! C'mon, Edward, are you serious?" she howled at me when she saw the movie I had queued up.

"What, I heard it was supposed to be really funny," I defended my movie choice.

"Well, I heard it was it was really freaking lame," she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, but like, funny lame," I countered.

"Whatever," she laughed, knowing I had the remote in my hand and she wasn't going to win. She squirmed around, pulling her feet up onto the couch and turning, so she could rest her legs against mine. She laid her head back against the armrest, a mirror image of my position. I grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled it over me as well. With a begrudged frown on my face, I offered her the bag of popcorn. Which, because she was annoyed at me for my apparently poor choice in movies, she took the whole bag from my hands and sat it in her lap and ate from it, instead of just taking a handful. I scowled at her until she threw the bag back to me.

"Seriously, Edward, you can be such a baby sometimes," she chided.

"Mmmmeh," I rolled my eyes, my mouth stuffed full of popcorn, and started the movie.

The only light in the room was the glow from the TV. Our bodies were stretched out alongside each other, a familiar yet newly electrifying position. Her little toes kept wiggling under the blanket and against my arm just below the sleeve of my tee shirt. I tried so hard to focus on the movie, but I was just staring blindly at it, seeing nothing - feeling everything.

Occasionally, I would look over at her, her soft features accentuated by the way the light flickered in the room. She was so adorable and cozy looking, having curled away from the armrest and toward me, resting her head against a pillow in the middle of the couch. I studied her when she didn't know I was looking. She was beautiful, I had always thought so, but lately I had really noticed. She was beautiful in a profound sort of way. Natural and innocent - and I knew she would disagree wholeheartedly with me if I ever said it out loud. Which I couldn't picture myself doing.

My eyes had a glazed over, distant look to them as she turned and caught me staring at her. The corner of my mouth turned up in a faint smile, and then I looked back to the movie, feeling her eyes on me for a few more minutes before she finally turned back to the movie as well. _I seriously wish I could read her mind._

Halfway through what was, from what I could tell, admittedly just a lame movie, my breath hitched and I froze. Bella's little fingers started tracing non-existent patterns across my stomach, over the top of my thin tee shirt. She was absent-mindedly running her fingertips along the hem of my shirt, and in circles, and down my sides. I was fucking dying inside. It wasn't like Bella and I never touched one another, we touched plenty. We had always been rather affectionate. But that fucking current. That current was there, and I swear to god that shit was connected to my balls, because they ached and squeezed and the combination of all the sensations nearly made me groan aloud or jump up off the couch to make her stop...or both.

Except that I didn't actually want her to stop. I risked a quick glance over at her and saw that she was chewing on her fucking lip again, staring intensely at the television screen, focusing way too hard on the comedy that was playing. Her mind was obviously elsewhere. I couldn't help but wonder where, as her fingers continued their circuit across my abs.

I swallowed thickly, my mouth dry and uncomfortable. I needed a soda or something. I jumped up without warning and nearly ran toward the tiny kitchen to grab a couple cans of pop. I came back, tossed her one, and sat back down on my side of the couch, tugging at the edge of the blanket to pull it up over my knees.

Bella had straightened up her posture and was curled into a ball on the other end of the couch, her arms wrapped around her knees. She sat the unopened pop in her lap without looking at me. I felt like a dick for some reason that I couldn't quite place. I stretched my feet back out, forcing them underneath her ass and behind her back. I reached out and grabbed her around the shoulders, tugging her down onto my lap. Wrapping my arms around her, I cradled her in front of me, brushing her wild hair away from my face and tucking it under her head in between us. It was not abnormal for us to watch movies in such a position. I just felt like I needed to make a nice gesture to her for some reason, like I had offended her by getting up so abruptly. She smiled up at me and then turned her attention back to the movie.

I tried to focus on the screen, but somehow every time I stopped being explicitly aware of my actions, my fingers began trailing up and down the exposed skin of Bella's arm that lay against my thigh. I could smell her sweet shampoo and feel her weight against my lap. Everything was overwhelming me. I felt like I had way more than just half a beer at Jessica's house, but that was all I had. So the uncontrollable swarming in my head and throughout my body had nothing to do with alcohol. Something else entirely was going on.

A soft sigh came from Bella, and I looked down to see if she was beginning to fall asleep or something. She did indeed have her eyes closed, but her chest was rising and falling far too erratically to be sleep. She opened her eyes slowly, the back of my fingers and my thumb brushing up her arm and back down to the crook of her elbow. She turned back and looked at me, her eyes heavy-lidded and swimming with something I couldn't read. Her little pink tongue peaked out and she licked her lips, then turned back to watch the movie, resting her head against my chest again.

Slowly, cautiously, and _very _intentionally, I raised my fingers, leaving her arm behind, and ran them down the side of her neck and into her hair, twisting the locks in between my fingers as I raked through the length. My eyes never left Bella's face, watching her for any sign of…well…anything, I guess. Her eyelids dropped and she leaned into my touch, sighing. I took that as a good sign.

I lifted my hand and repeated the motion over and over until I was no longer brushing my fingers against her neck, but just running them through the long strands of her hair. The ends of which landed dangerously near her breasts, which I didn't dare even graze, having no fucking clue what was even going on with us.

We were both lost in a sea of sensation and confusion. The only indicator that the movie was over and the credits were rolling was the change in lighting in the room, as the black screen offered up almost no light whatsoever. I was still running my fingers through Bella's hair, enjoying the soft, silken texture of it as she lay cradled against me. Her body was utterly relaxed as her head lolled against my chest. But I knew she wasn't asleep. I had slept near Bella enough times to know that she was not even close to being that quiet in her sleep. She always mumbled and yammered nonsensically whenever she was under completely. As it was, she was awake and thoroughly enjoying my touch.

_Perhaps_ _too thoroughly, _I wonderedas I noted the way she wriggled and squeezed her thighs together. My mind ran rampant with dirty thoughts, none of which were based in reality given that I had never really seduced a girl before, so I had no clue what she was actually doing. I just knew what I was enjoying _thinking _she was doing.

I laid my head back against the armrest, still stroking Bella's hair. My other hand ran the length of her forearm, my fingers finding her open palm and I wrapped them around her tiny hand, my thumb rubbing soft circles against hers as I held it. I closed my eyes and just enjoyed laying there with Bella, my best friend.

After a long spanse of time spent in a silent, if not somewhat awkward, bliss, I acted on impulse. I placed my hands gently on her relaxed little shoulders and pushed her up into a sitting position. I crawled out from beneath her and got to my feet. Without saying anything or looking back at her, I rounded the couch and climbed the noisy stairs to Bella's bedroom. The entire house was dark, Bella's room was no exception, save for the faint white glow that seeped in from the moonlight through the lace curtains. I walked over to the desk that sat in front of the window and picked up the picture frame that sat proudly next to the lamp.

I smiled fondly down at the two huge cheesy grins coming from happy, filthy, ten year olds. The picture was taken just months after Bella's mother had passed away and my parents took her with us to our summer home by the lake for a month so that Charlie could grieve and take care of everything accordingly. We were like her family, she leaned on us then. Judging from the gigantic smile on her adorable little face in the picture I was holding, it worked. She mourned appropriately, but was loved enough to adjust. On that particular day, I remembered, we had been burying each other in the muddy silt underneath the pier at the lake. My mom laughed until she cried when she found us, covered from head to toe in mud.

I sighed heavily; troubled by everything that seemed to be changing between us.

A small hand snaked around me and fingered the picture that was still in my hands. Bella peeked over my shoulder, but didn't move to take the frame from me. She just looked at it with me. She chuckled quietly, the sound almost noisy in the silent room.

"You've always been there." Her whispered voice was both reminiscent and sombre. I removed the frame from her fingers and placed it back on the desk, turning to face her. I leaned against the desk and just looked at her for a long time, longer than probably made her comfortable, knowing Bella. But she allowed me to, somehow understanding that I needed it. She was looking down at her hands, wringing them anxiously in front of her. I was looking at the way her hair looked almost black in the pale moonlight against the white of her skin. Her heavy lids fought to stay open as she looked down, the vague shadows of her long eyelashes danced against her cheekbones. I noticed the fullness of her bottom lip as she bit it and the nervous posture as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Her nerves seemed out of place, _it was just_ _me._

I reached out and brushed her loose hair away from her face, laying it behind her shoulders to spill down her back. My fingers along her temples, cheek, neck, and collarbone unnecessarily as I did so. Her eyes fluttered up in a frenzy, meeting mine. She continued to chew on her lip - that shit drove me fucking insane. So, I reached up and placed my fingers just under her chin, the pad of my thumb under her lip, and tugged it free, never breaking my eye contact with her. I could see her fighting the instinct to look away. She obviously wanted to look into my eyes despite the weird electricity_. _I took that as permission to keep touching her in ways I never had before. The current danced across my skin, burning me.

With my fingers still under her chin, I stretched my hand out and wrapped my fingers lightly around her neck. I brought my other hand up, cautiously, trembling, and rest it against the other side of her face. I drew in a nervous breathe and pulled her to me. Cradling her against me, I tucked her head beneath my chin. I was content to just hug her for a minute, absorbing the energy that flowed between us. It was almost enough to overwhelm me. I wasn't sure how or if I could proceed any further. I exhaled.

Bella wrapped her little arms around my waist and held to me as tightly as I was holding to her. It felt fucking amazing. I had hugged Bella more times than I could count, but never like that. Never so intimately, so tenderly, and with so many silent promises exchanged.

I ran a hand down the back of her head and through her hair, leaning down to press a soft kiss against her forehead. My lips lingered far longer than they should have. She made a contented little sound and I felt a small tremor ripple through her body. She looked up at me, her eyes holding a thousand silent questions. I doubted my soft eyes held any of the answers she was looking for, and if they did, they weren't sharing them with the rest of me - I was just as confused as Bella. She reached up and traced the outline of my lips with the tips of her fingers, running them from my lips, over my chin and down my neck, leaving a trail of delicious fire behind them.

I stared into her eyes searching, questioning, loving. My breathing picked up, knowing I was seconds from leaning down to kiss her, irrevocably changing everything. I was beginning to panic. Doubt crept in quietly, yet potently, penetrating the sea of emotion and sensation I was drowning in. Then Bella smiled at me. It was faint and nervous and so _Bella_, that my heart squeezed and I knew that whether or not I kissed her at that exact moment, everything had already changed. I had loved Bella from the moment she took her first breath, but this was different.

With my palms still cupping her face gently, I wet my lips, staring into her beautiful eyes, so filled with emotion that it threatened to crush me. Softly, slowly, just a whisper of a movement, my lips brushed over hers. I closed my heavy eyes and wrapped my mouth around her lower lip, drawing it into mine and sucking lightly on it. I was so nervous my entire body was trembling, or maybe it was Bella trembling against me. Probably both. I pulled back just enough that we were no longer touching, but our breath poured warm and heavy against our moistened lips. My eyes were closed and I sensed that hers were as well, as we stood still absorbing the swarm of sensation and emotion, the line being crossed and then quickly forgotten.

My fingers tightened against her jaw and neck and I pulled her closer to me, pressing my lips back against hers. This time was a bit rougher and needier. I didn't mean to kiss Bella that way, but my body was quickly taking over. She felt so fucking amazing. It was irrelevant, she followed suit.

My fingers dug into the back of her neck as my thumb pressed softly on her cheekbone. My tongue swept across her lower lip and she parted hers, allowing me in. Our tongues met tentatively at first, sending a shrill shockwave through my entire body. I had kissed other girls before, but it had never felt like that. Kissing Bella was so charged, so full of promise and friendship, understanding and warmth. And apparently passion and need as Bella reached up and wound her little fingers into the hair at my neck and tugged me closer to her, deepening our kiss and moaning quietly into my mouth. I felt the vibrations against my lips. They rippled through me. I felt it in my fucking toes.

I was pretty sure I growled a little as the shockwave washed over me and I nipped lightly at her bottom lip, the sense of urgency and need building exponentially. I took a small step forward, driving Bella back a step, neither one of us willing to break the kiss or relinquish our grip on one another. I guided her until the backs of her knees collided with the edge of her bed.

I used the hand that was cradling her face to apply the slightest bit of pressure against her head, holding her back a bit and slowing our kiss as we stood at the edge of the bed. I pulled back just enough to withdraw my tongue and soften our kiss, ghosting my lips lightly over hers instead. I tilted her head to the side, allowing me access to her neck, and I moved my kiss along her jaw and over the thin, pale skin of her neck, still cradling her head in my hands. She moaned quietly and it sounded more like a plea than anything.

Slowly, still lavishing on her neck and collarbone, I slid my hands down along the sides of her body until they met her hips. I kneaded and rubbed for a moment. She moaned and tugged on my hair, which I was really beginning to fucking enjoy. I wrapped my hands around her ass, lifting her up and pressing her closer to me, crossing her legs around my waist. Holding her against me and returning my mouth to hers, I stepped forward and put one knee up on the bed. With Bella still clinging to me as if her life deepened on it, I crawled up onto her little twin bed and lay her down against the sheets - her comforter was still on the couch.

I stretched out on top of her, using one of my forearms to support most of my weight, not wanting to crush her. Her legs were still wrapped tightly around me as she used them to try and pull me closer to her. Truthfully, I wasn't sure it was possible to get any closer. My dick was hard as a rock, wedged between my jeans and her as she pulled and writhed below me, obviously searching for a bit of friction for her own purposes. I was more than willing to oblige.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I realised that the situation was quickly getting out of hand, but I also didn't care. Bella didn't seem concerned, so I continued kissing her sweet lips and running my free hand up and down the length of her side. On the last passage along her hip and up her waist, my fingers found the hem of her shirt and twisted in the fabric. As I moved my hand up along her ribs, I slid the tee shirt up with me. I raised myself off of her enough to grant the necessary space to move her shirt entirely up and over her head. She squirmed out of it and looked up at me shyly. Part of my stupid lust-filled brain found her shyness hilarious, given that we had bathed together as babies, swam naked in the lake together as small children and even changed quickly and modestly while the other looked away on occasion. She was beautiful and adorable and perfect as she looked up at me with hesitant eyes. She looked to me with such trust, the same expression she wore in the days surrounding that muddy little picture, the days she needed me the most. I was there for her as a kid, and I could be there for her now, in a new way, and in some ways, a more important way. I would never do anything to exploit that trust. _I can take care of you Bella_, I vowed silently, wishing she could hear me.

My eyes drifted along her nearly naked chest and torso then slowly returned back up. I felt the heat of her blush beneath me and looked deeply into her big, bashful eyes. I shook my head lightly at her.

"You're perfect, Bella," I whispered to her. She rolled her eyes. I was annoyed. "I mean it, I have never really said anything, but you are so beautiful. So beautiful…" I trailed off, ghosting my fingertips down from her neck, over her shoulders, across her collarbone and down her sides. I just barely swept across the faint swell of her breasts and bra, keeping my fingers more toward her sides, and down over her ribs where they landed on her hips. I sat back on my heels and just looked at her. She really was perfect, the pale lavender of her lacy bra barely visible in the white moonlight, against her pale skin. My fingers rest on the tops of her jeans, but I wasn't going to push things by acknowledging it. Instead, I traced the backs of my fingers back up the length of her beautiful body, more toward the centre, and up over her breasts, not pausing to properly enjoy them, just allowing her time to adjust to having my hands on her.

I expected there to be some sort of disconnect from the fact that the girl sprawled out on her bed beneath me was my lifelong best friend. There was no such disconnect. I was vividly aware of the fact that it was Bella whose body I was tracing lines on back and forth down her front, whose legs were wrapped around me pulling me toward her, wanting more contact. I complied and bent over to kiss her, deeply, sliding one hand along her cheek to cradle her head in my hand as while we explored one anothers mouths. Our tongues moved together, our small moans and grunts turning me on just as much as our actions.

After what felt like hours of just kissing, getting to know one another in a very different capacity than we had ever known each other, Bella slid her hands under the front of my shirt. She ran her hands along my abs and up over my chest, bringing my shirt with her. I was all too willing to rid myself of the barrier, craving more skin to skin contact. I threw it on the floor and wrapped my arms around her, a current of energy surging through me, shuddering down my body, to my fingertips and toes, and back up along my spine. I felt the electricity elsewhere as well. And while I was trying really fucking hard to be a gentleman, I really wanted to rip the rest of her clothes off and fucking bury myself inside of her.

Things progressed rapidly from there. We shed jeans quickly with nervous, fumbling fingers. Occasionally, looking up and locking eyes with a shy smile on our lips. Our eyes were warm and soft and very passionate. _Best friends. _

I gripped her hip, almost too hard, but couldn't find the will to be any more gentle with her. I hitched her leg up over my hip and ground myself and my poor, crazed hard-on into her. With nothing but flimsy cotton and lace between us, the trill of sensation ricocheted through us as our most aroused areas rubbed back and forth together, creating friction and warmth. I wanted so desperately to feel more of her.

Her head was thrown back, her fingers tangled and tugging in my hair as I circled my tongue around the shell of her ear, moaning lightly as she raised her hips up off the bed to grind herself into me. I dragged my hand from her shoulder, over the swell of her breasts, still covered in lavender lace, and down over her ribs. With caution, I worked my fingertips under the band of her panties, dipping them underneath and gripping her bare hip, pulling her closer to me. She whimpered and mewled, her sounds going straight to my dick. It twitched and begged to be touched. I kind of hoped it would get what it wanted, but I would not push for anything. I cared too much about this girl.

Slowly, cautiously, kissing and nipping at her neck and shoulder, I looked up at her. She had her eyes closed and was breathing heavily, as I slipped my hand lower, my middle finger circling her swollen clit, keeping a watchful eye on her face for any sign that I had gone too far. She moaned and clamped down on her lower lip to quiet herself. I figured that meant she didn't mind what I was doing. I certainly didn't.

I traced around her clit, and then lowered my finger. She was so fucking wet that I groaned along with her as my finger dipped into the moisture. _Oh fuck… _

I circled my fingertip around her, working in the evidence of what _I _was capable of doing to her. I found that idea so fucking hot. I moved my finger into her just an inch, then circling and withdrawing a little, I repeated the action slowly, over and over. She writhed and moaned beneath me as I pressed the heel of my hand against her most sensitive spot. Having no fucking clue at all what I was doing, just working off of her reactions.

I pushed my entire finger into her, curling it a bit forward and slowly working it in and out of her, the moisture increasing with her sweet little sounds. I sucked on the her bottom lip and moaned with her, against her mouth as I continued pumping my finger into her. I slowly circled another finger around her entrance, barely dipping it in. I nuzzled into her neck with my nose, kissing and licking anything my lips could reach, as I slid my finger out of her. She whimpered. I pushed it back in slowly, moving the second finger in alongside it. She was so fucking tight I could barely fit both fingers in her, and I idly wondered how the fuck anything else was going to fit in there. The thought made everything twitch and I groaned into her ear. She clawed at the back of my shoulders and wrapped her legs tight around my waist, holding me to her so tight I could barely move my hand. Her insides clamped down around my fingers and she moaned and panted my name, shuddering and whimpering as I pumped my fingers slowly in and out of her as she rode out the tail end of what I assumed was an orgasm. I was insanely jealous, and also pretty fucking proud of myself, having never done anything even remotely close to that before.

I removed my fingers from her, sliding them out from her panties, curling them to keep from wiping the moisture on her, and kissed her. It was soft and gentle. I wasn't looking for anything more. Watching Bella come undone beneath me, my name on her lips as she moaned with a pleasure that I was bringing her - that was Heaven. I could wait for more. She was too precious to me to push for anything else.

But she deepened the kiss. She grabbed and pulled at my hair. She was greedy and quickly forcing my body to reign over my mind. I plunged my tongue into her mouth and wrapped my arms around her, lifting her enough so that she could arch her back and I could undo the clasp of her bra. Taking more as long as she was offering. Her little fingers pulled at the waistband of my boxer briefs. My dick pulsed with anticipation.

Her bra discarded somewhere on the floor with the rest of our clothing, I traced hot, wet kisses down her neck, over her shoulder. My hand reached up the other side of her body to gently palm the freshly exposed skin. Her nipple hardened under my touch and she moaned. I traced a circle around it with my thumb as my mouth dipped down and drew in her other beautiful, little pink button into my mouth, sucking and swirling my tongue around it. Her fingers had come to rest on my neck and shoulders. She dug nails into my skin in a way that was almost painful, but so fucking hot at the same time. Her head was thrown back into the pillows. I worked my way down her stomach, over her ribs, kissing, licking, gripping her with my hands. I got to the top of her panties and grabbed them, tugging on them, needing more of her exposed and laid out just for me.

Bella lifted her hips up off the bed, allowing me to pull the flimsy piece of lace down her legs until she could kick them off with her feet. Her hands returning to my underwear as I looked down at all of her with awe. Truthfully, it was the first time I had seen an entirely naked woman before. And this particular one was writhing beneath me and moaning my name. I almost came on the spot. I actually had to make a conscious effort to restrain myself, something I was not used to doing with my own solo exploits. It was fucking torture. A sweet, heavenly, painful torture.

When Bella tugged and pulled at my boxer briefs it snapped me back to the present. I grabbed her little wrists in my long fingers, stopping her…though for the life of me I couldn't remember why. I looked into her eyes, wild with excitement and arousal.

"Bella," my voice came out hoarse and broken. It was rough with desire, even though my actions were contradicting that need. "Bella, you don't have to…" I trailed off, not sure of what she was trying to do anyway, just knowing that I had to make sure she understood that she had complete control of the situation. Everything had to be her choice, not mine.

Defiance flared in her eyes as she pushed down my boxers as far as her arms could reach without answering my pleas. Who was I to deny whatever she wanted? I conceded and wiggled myself free of them, kicking them to the floor. Her legs, around my waist, fell open a little more – permission to take whatever I wanted. I groaned and fought back the urge to just dive right in, overly eager in my inexperienced state. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and she bit her fucking little lip while she looked up at me, naked, exposed, vulnerable….waiting. I didn't want to disappoint her or make her feel foolish in anyway, she was the most glorious thing I had ever seen. So I told her so.

Then my responsible side piped up, momentarily lost somewhere in the heat and the excitement. "Bella, shit, I don't…have…anything…" Seriously, it was like those fucking sex lectures in school. If I didn't have the balls to say the fucking word "condom" to her out loud, was I really ready to fuck her? Probably not. I rolled my eyes at my very inconvenient train of thought until Bella's beautiful little words dragged me from my aching balls and my own personal, responsible, hell.

"Edward, I'm on the pill, for, ya know…girlie…reasons. And you know I've never…" She trailed off too. Well, weren't we quite the bold pair. Actions came much easier than words. I muttered something about the fact that I had never either…which was utterly useless because Bella was my best friend and she knew I had never done shit with anyone.

She reached up and slid her fingers into the hair at the back of my neck, softer than she had before. She pulled me down to her and kissed me gently. I lay against her, my dick twitching and pulsing, so close to the wet heat it was seeking.

I braced myself on my forearms, sliding my palms under her little head, cradling her against me. I cherished her. Gently, I nudged one of her thighs with my knee, needing her to open up wider for me. I trailed kisses along her jaw, the sensitive spot just underneath, and over her collarbone, sucking lightly, but never enough to mark her. I would never disrespect Bella like that. My thumbs rubbed soothing, tender circles where they reached behind her ears.

"Bella," I used her name as a question, my voice stripped and raw.

"Please," she answered her lips at my ear as she kissed my neck and wrapped her arms around my back, holding me close to her. There was nothing I wouldn't give her if she asked, even myself.

I aligned myself to her properly, feeling the moisture and the heat as the head of my cock moved against her entrance. The sensations rippled through me and my whole body shuddered. Bella moaned. My dick swelled harder. I stared deep into her eyes, still questioning. She tugged at me with her arms…answering.

So slow I almost cried out from the throbbing pain in my dick, I pushed an inch into her, moving around her moisture and dipping in and out of her. I was so terrified I was going to hurt her. She squirmed beneath me and moaned. I breathed heavily into her ear, sucking her earlobe into my mouth, moving a tiny bit further into her. I swear I could actually feel the thin barrier against the head of my cock as I pushed on it. It seemed so unfair that my body was flourishing with the most amazing fucking sensations I had ever felt, and I was about to inflict actual searing pain onto her. _God, girls really do have the shit end of the bargain, _I grumbled silently to myself, wishing like hell I could find a way to not make Bella feel any pain-ever.

"Bella," I choked out through a strained voice. "It's going to hurt, Bella. I don't want to hurt you." I rubbed my fingertips into her scalp, still cradling her precious little head in the palms of my hands as I hovered over her. Her eyes were warm and tender, she was panting and moaning.

"Please, Edward, please," she whispered so quietly I had to lean in closer to even hear her. "It should be you…Edward."

My name on her needy, breathy lips, begging me to make love to her for the first time, was enough to break my tenuous resolve. I pushed past her barrier so slowly, working in the slippery moisture that was the proof of how badly she wanted it to be me. It was borderline painful how slowly and agonizingly I moved inside of her. Pulling back out an inch, then back in, pushing slightly further than the pervious time. Finally, I had to just do it. I had to push through her barrier and hurt her. And it felt fucking fantastic….for me.

Bella gasped and cried out and I froze above her, my eyes the size of saucers and I searched her features, begging her to tell me if she was okay. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was panting louder and rougher than before. I felt fucking amazing, except the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that Bella was in pain. The sick feeling actually outweighed the glorious, liquid warmth that was crashing over my body. I stilled and asked her if she was alright.

"No," she panted. "But don't stop. God please, Edward, don't stop. I will be okay. Just don't stop."

It wasn't really that encouraging, the way she tried to breathe through the burning pain that from the look on her twisted little face I imagined was excruciating. But she was begging for me, and despite everything else, that shit was hot. I pulled out slowly, and then rocked back into her, the warmth wrapping around my every nerve-ending and blanketing me in it. I muttered a long string of obscenities even though I tried to fight them back. Somewhere the better part of my brain told me I should say nicer things, whisper words of encouragement and tenderness to Bella as I slipped in and out of her, not even sheathing myself entirely yet. But all I could manage for the first few minutes was profanity. _Novice. _

I moved slowly, looking whenever I could through my own squinted eyes at Bella. She looked beautiful, and her features slowly dissolved from the twisted look of pain to one of pleasure. Her thighs loosened beneath me, allowing me to push myself deeper into her. Again, she cried out. Again, I froze.

"Fuck, Bella, I'm so sorry….I'm so sorry…" I whispered in her ear, nuzzling my nose along her ear and neck.

"No, Edward, fuck," she panted into my shoulder. "So…fucking…good…"

_Oh thank god. _I smiled into her neck and nipped at the beautiful, thin skin there.

I lifted one hand, still nestling her head in the palm of my other. I brushed back the hair stuck to her sweaty forehead, and pushed it off her face, running my warm palm over her cheek and down her neck. I pushed my hand underneath her arm and across her back, holding her tight to me. I prayed that I could transfer the onslaught of emotion I had for her through me and into her, as I moved inside her.

Bella crossed her long legs behind me as I rocked slowly in and out of her, feeling the splinters of hot sensation shooting through me. I could barely move because she had such a tight grip on me. It was all superfluous as the heat that I felt deep in my belly clenched and I fought to hold it back.

Her sharp little fingernails dug deep into my shoulder and she cried out, tightening around me, sending me over the already delicate edge I was balancing on. I cried out along with her, cradling her tight against me, still moving in and out slowly as both our bodies stiffened, shuddered and then relaxed into one another.

I held her there for a long time, panting heavily, resting my forehead on hers, just coming down from the sheer fucking high that was making love to Bella. Then my sensible side returned and I realised with the shaky state of my arms, I was probably crushing her beneath me. I rolled over a few inches, my chest sliding down her arm until I was on my side, moving her with me.

"Bella," I whispered once our breathing steadied out. "Are you okay?" Suddenly I was overcome with worry that she was not okay. That I had hurt her, or rushed this, whatever the fuck it was that happened tonight. That emotionally and physically I had taken advantage of her. Just as I was beginning to panic, she reached up and ran her fingers through my sweaty, messy hair and sighed.

"Uhm…I'm not sure, I think so." She giggled a little and I looked up to meet her eyes, so soft, so precious. "You're, uhm…still…in…I can't tell, really…" she trailed off, biting her lower lip, looking so fucking shy and unsure of herself that I almost laughed. How could she look bashful after we had just stripped ourselves naked and bare in front of one another and made love?

"Right," I muttered, feeling a little awkward myself. I looked deep into her eyes, narrowing mine as a broad smile stretched across my face. I laughed lightly and scooted myself onto my back, effectively withdrawing my dick from its new favourite place, nice and warm inside Bella. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me, running my fingers through her long, dark hair. The moonlight bathed her naked body, flush against mine, in the most glorious white blanket. She looked like an apparition, soft and white, long and beautiful, her legs tangled in mine, our feet wrapped up in the twisted sheets.

We lay like that for an indiscernible amount of time. I ran my fingers through her hair, ghosting them over her back and ribs, along the back of her arms where they were wrapped around my neck. Eventually, I twisted around, sliding her off of me just slightly, so that I could lean across the bed and read the glowing green numbers on her alarm clock. They read 3:17 and I knew Charlie would be home around five.

I snuggled back into her; cold and seeking the warmth of her body against mine, clinging to her. I closed my eyes and revelled in the feeling of her little fingers in my hair, twisting it and sweeping through it.

"What time is it?" she whispered after a few minutes. I told her and she muttered some mild profanities under her breath. Which made me chuckle because I had never heard Bella swear so much in all our lives as I had tonight. Maybe I was a bad influence on her. She wormed herself in closer to me, and I refused to believe that I was. I loved Bella in ways that I wasn't even sure I could articulate. I would do anything for her.

"You don't have to stay, Edward," she whispered quietly into my chest, where her precious little head lay.

"Charlie isn't going to be home for a few hours, Bella, Jesus. I'm not just going to leave," I scoffed back at her. What kind of asshole did she think I was? She giggled at my offended tone and wrapped her arms around me tighter. I smiled down at her, even though she couldn't see it, and held her close to me, so fucking happy I could explode.

An hour later, Bella's chest was heaving steadily against mine as she slept, wrapped in my arms. Despite having no blankets and the chill of the early December air outside, I felt blanketed in a warmth I could not find the proper words to describe. My insides were glowing. But I knew I had to get out of her bed before I drifted off to sleep along with her and Charlie found us…which would probably be a really fucking bad idea.

I gently nudged her, wiggling underneath her until her peaceful little eyes fluttered open and she mumbled some things I couldn't understand.

She yawned and stretched against me. I tried not to let my dick react to her naked body shimmying against mine, knowing that _definitely_ was a bad idea. Given the time and the fact that she had to be really fucking sore, whether she knew it yet or not.

"Are you going now?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

"No, Bella, I'm just going to get dressed and go sleep downstairs on the couch. I'm sure everyone knows I'm here, so I'm not just gonna take off right before your dad gets home-that would look odd, don't you think?" I laughed.

She "mmm'd" and nuzzled back against me. I rolled her over, so fucking tempted to just stay put, consequences be damned. But I didn't. I climbed off her bed, a little sore myself, rubbing my biceps that ached from supporting my weight for so long. I knew it was nothing compared to the ache Bella was going to feel when she woke up.

I gathered up my clothes and got dressed. I threw all of her haphazardly discarded articles of clothing into her laundry hamper, and went to retrieve her favourite pair of ratty sweat pants from her bottom dresser drawer and a tee shirt. I walked lightly back over to her, sleeping peacefully and looking like a fucking angel in the soft moonlight that bathed her naked flesh against her dark sheets. I trailed my fingertips lightly over her skin, from her hairline, down her neck, along her spine and over her adorable little ass. They trailed off at the top of her thighs and she moaned quietly in her sleep. I bent down on my knees and nuzzled my nose into her neck and ear.

"Bella, your pyjamas are on the foot of your bed, okay? I _really _think you should _not _be naked when your dad gets home." I laughed at the idea, despite the shudder of fear that washed over me. A man with a loaded weapon finding his freshly violated daughter in her bedroom and the prick who did it asleep on his couch like he owned the fucking joint. I cringed.

She murmured an okay and I poked her until her eyes opened slowly. "Seriously, Bella, Charlie will fucking shoot me…and then castrate me. And then probably shoot me again. Please get dressed." She giggled and sat up. I held her face in my hands, looking at her with an emotion that I couldn't name. Her sleepy little eyes searched mine, probably trying to understand what I was feeling…and what she was feeling. I smiled a small little smile of encouragement at her, then bent down and kissed her forehead, leaving my lips lingering against her warm skin for a moment, not wanting to walk away from her, even if it was just to go downstairs. She sighed and I pulled back, knowing she needed to get some sleep. She was going to be tired, stiff and sore tomorrow, or…today, whatever.

I walked away and went downstairs, feeling like I was leaving a piece of myself back in the bedroom. Which, as I stretched out on the couch pulling her comforter that smelled sweet and sugary like Bella up around me, I realised I was leaving a piece of me behind. A piece that I could never get back and I could never give to anyone else. We had swapped those pieces of ourselves. I would guard hers with my life.

I drifted off within seconds, fucking exhausted. It felt like just minutes before Charlie's loud boots in the entrance woke me up. He hung up his jacket and his gun, clamouring loudly down the hallway and into the living room, grunting and groaning under his breath. Despite being a guest in the house, I had the urge to tell him to shut the fuck up because he was going to wake up Bella. I bit my tongue and jammed the heels of my palms into my eye sockets trying to block out the light and fall back to sleep.

"Figured you'd be here," Charlie grumbled, slumping heavily into his Barcalounger. "You're in my parking spot."

I muttered something unintelligible and rolled over, facing the back of the couch and pulling Bella's comforter over my head. I knew that to Charlie nothing was out of the ordinary. I often stayed the night on their couch when he had to work overnight shifts, so that Bella would feel safe while she slept. There was an empty bag of popcorn on the floor and the blue screen that read, "Thank you for your purchase," still flickered on the television. Everything was normal. Except that mere hours ago both Bella and I had given our virginity to one another. To me, it still felt like everything was as it should be.

I drifted back to sleep, wrapped in Bella's scent, with her soft words telling me that it should be me, wafting through my mind. Utterly content.

* * *

Thoughts? Are we interested in a bit more? I've got LOTS where that came from...

Review and let me know what you think, if you please. You have no idea how much I crave your thoughts. I jump around and fist pump with every review, its almost embarrassing...almost.

Come play with me on Twitter if you want more clean fun.

*snort*

(at)erinbatt

~xox~


	3. This Close

Don't go getting all spoiled or anything :)

I just love these two kiddies and want to share their story with you.

_Hope you don't mind._

Enjoy! And thank you all for your reviews, I fear you may be spoiling me.

~xox~

* * *

The years that followed went by pretty smoothly. My friendship with Bella remained relatively unaltered, despite the tiny, little detail that we were having a fuck load of sex. Initially, I feared that being intimate would somehow alter or otherwise weaken our friendship, but miraculously I had only strengthened it. We were once again inseparable, spending all our free time with one another – laughing, joking, studying, and of course, fucking like rabbits. We couldn't get enough of each other. The physical need had tangled intricately with the emotional bond we had always shared, creating a vice grip on our relationship. I wasn't sure I could feasibly function anymore without Bella.

We consciously chose to keep the depths of our intimacy under wraps. We weren't really sure what it was that we were doing, but one thing we _were_ sure of was that our parents wouldn't be all that impressed should they find out the truth. Fortunately for us, no one questioned our affectionate nature when Bella sat in my lap at lunchtime in the school cafeteria, or when I would lay my head in her lap in the backyard as we all stretched out in the lawn during the summer months, talking and soaking up the rare moments of sun Forks had to offer. Bella would rake her little fingers through my hair and along my scalp, knowing that shit turned me on like nothing else, while I lied there with my eyes closed, pretending to barely notice…which couldn't have been further from the truth. Every aching, rock-hard, pulsing inch of me noticed. But no one else did, thankfully.

Bella and I would often ride home together from school, taking a bit of a detour to have fucking incredible, back-seat-of-my-way-too-small-car sex. It didn't matter how cramped the conditions, I would never pass up an opportunity to sit back and enjoy the ride as Bella bounced on my dick, moaning my name repeatedly. _Does it get any fucking hotter?_

The closest we ever came to getting caught was a night just before the end of our senior year. Alice had dragged us out to go see the band that Jasper was in perform at an all-ages club in downtown Seattle one weekend. We had a room at some hotel in town and made a weekend trip out of it, just us "kids". My dad booked the room for us, his treat, since he was getting all sentimental about me graduating soon. It was a penthouse suite atop an insanely swanky high-rise. The room had three bedrooms, a huge great room with a baby grand piano, large picture windows that looked out onto the city, and a full kitchen. Emmett and his girlfriend Rosalie took one room, leaving Alice and Bella to room together, and me and Jasper. I would have fucking killed to offer up a roommate swap…though that would have left my baby sister in a room in a plush hotel with her guitar-wielding boyfriend of nearly two years – no thanks. I shuddered to think of it.

That weekend nearly killed me as I envisioned fucking Bella on every surface of the hotel room, my favourite fantasy being the top of the piano. I could practically hear the angry strum of the keys as they banged beneath her ass, or feet, or hands…depending on the position. _Or all of the above. _

By the time Sunday night came around, the night of the concert, I was so fucking horny that I thought I might just say, "screw" it and out us. That way at least I could grab Bella and drag her into my room, closing and locking the door, and fucking the shit out of her to get it out of my system. It was beginning to get difficult to walk.

I craved Bella in odd ways, ways that I couldn't really find definitions for. I longed to feel her beneath my palms; her skin was so soft and silky, her hair like satin, her curves beautiful in the way they fit into mine. There was something about the thrill of emotion that washed over me every time I took Bella into my arms in ways that I would not do if anyone else was around. The intimate ways. The romantic ways. My body felt empty and hollow if I went too long without holding her naked and trembling in my arms; without the feel of her sticky flesh against mine, her warm breath panning out against my neck and shoulders. I almost felt sick to my stomach if I could not touch her, which was why I was constantly sneaking little gestures when no one was paying attention. I would skim the backs of my fingers across her cheek, up the back of her arm, or over her neck. I would hold her close while watching a movie with everyone else in the room, and nuzzle my nose deep into her sweet smelling hair, desperate for a quick sniff of her scent, perhaps even leaving a chaste peck on her ear or neck, depending on who was around and how bold I was feeling.

The weekend in Seattle, I almost outed us a hundred different times. It was getting to the point that Bella was scolding me when no one was around for my foolish behaviour. I had no rebuttal, I was toeing the line dangerously close and I knew it. With that said, I knew Bella enjoyed every touch, and she needed me as badly as I needed her. Thus, even her reprimands were half-hearted.

Half way through Jasper's set I couldn't take it anymore. We were all sandwiched into the tiny sardine can sized lounge while he was on stage. Alice was lost in fascination watching him perform. Emmett and Rosalie were making out in a booth somewhere, totally fucking shameless…the assholes. Bella stood in front of me and next to Allie, swaying to the loud rock music. Occasionally, she would bump into me or rub against me in ways that I knew were entirely intentional. _Cock tease. _

I glowered at the back of her head, my eyes skating over the rest of her body. She had on a dress so short I almost made her change before we left, but figured that would be over-stepping the _friends _boundaries a little. And her heels – god, those fucking heels were killing me. I couldn't make them out against the floor of the dark club, but I could see the glow of her bare legs, and the amazing shape that was a direct result of the blessed heels.

Alice leaned over and shouted something in Bella's ear. Bella shook her head to indicate she couldn't hear her and Alice tried again. Bella looked up to the stage and smiled at Jasper, Allie beaming like a moron beside her. Before I could contemplate what Allie had said, a small set of fingers that I was all too familiar with reached back and grabbed my hand. The action was mostly concealed by the blackness of the room. She laced her fingers into mine and squeezed, backing up minutely. It was a game we were well acquainted with: how far could we push he boundaries before we risked getting caught? It was thrilling and frustrating all at once. I longed to openly kiss Bella whenever it suited me, or grab her ass if I felt so inclined.

It wasn't lost on me that whatever tender words of endearment Alice was shouting at Bella about Jasper had made Bella want to reach out and hold my hand. I took a step forward, placing my foot right beside Bella's, in between her legs. My knee rubbed up against hers as she leaned back into me, still gripping my hand in hers. Emmett and Rose were lost in one another in a corner booth at the far left of the room, and Alice of was standing safely to the side of me and Bella. I took the hand that held hers and snaked it around her waist, pulling her back into me while leaning over to Allie and saying something about Jasper, distracting her so that I could have five fucking seconds of Bella pressed against me. The liquid wave of warmth and passion rippled through me as our bodies collided.

Eventually, Bella dropped my hand and I stepped back, watching her from afar, until my dick got the better of me. I grabbed at the hem of her dress and tugged backward in two swift, abrupt yanks. I turned and shoved my way through the crowd of concert-goers and pushed through the back door that lead to the alley. It was dark and damp, the early summer rain of Washington having dumped down on us all weekend until the morning of the concert. I stomped across the alley and leaned against the wall of the building on the opposite side of the door I had exited. Less than ten seconds later, Bella emerged.

Her wild chocolate brown eyes narrowed when she spotted me, her head shaking slightly.

"What's going on, Edward?" she demanded, looking behind her to make sure the door had shut properly.

"What's going on?" I sneered in a mocking tone. "Are you fucking serious with this shit?" I kicked an empty beer bottle across the alley and it bounced and clanged loudly against a dumpster. Bella flinched. That was not at all my intention. I was instantly repentant.

"Bella," I began, my tone infinitely softer than before. "I think I'm going to fucking explode." I was trying to lighten the tension with some truthful humour. She rolled her eyes at me.

"I know," she whispered. "But what can we do?"

"Uhm, kick Jasper the fuck out and test the durability of hotel mattresses by putting hours of unrestrained stress on it," I suggested. She laughed, mistakenly assuming I was kidding around. I wasn't. I was up for anything at that point. It was May, what the fuck did it matter who knew? Soon we would be going our separate ways. The thought made my heart clench and bleed, but it was inevitable.

"Alice is going to notice I'm gone," Bella muttered, gesturing toward the door indicating that we should go back in. It was a ridiculous notion because Alice wouldn't have noticed if a fucking meteor took out the lounge, so long as the stage remained in tact.

Bella jumped down off the steps and into the alley. Grabbing my hand in hers, she reached up on her tip-toes and kissed me, slowly and softly, before spinning around, dragging me behind her. Just before she started climbing the stairs, I pulled back on her hand.

"Wait a sec," I said, bending to tie my shoe. I crouched down on one knee in the dark alley, the streetlight casting a sideways yellow glow on us from the corner of the street a block away. As I was tying my shoe I made the mistake of looking up to make sure Bella wasn't going in without me. I wasn't crazy about the idea of her roaming around in there unprotected in that sorry excuse for a dress.

My eyes met with pale, creamy, bare thighs as Bella stood, jamming at the keys on her cell phone, waiting for me to stand and come with her. I licked my lips and enjoyed my view a bit longer, the idea of returning back into the mosh pit of sweaty strangers growing less and less appealing by the second.

Bella tossed her phone back into her handbag and looked down at me. It took all of one sixteenth of a second for her to register the way I was looking at her, my mouth hanging open slightly, my eyes heavy and narrowed. She was instantly wary - as she should be.

"Edward…" she cautioned.

I ignored her, reaching my hand out and slipping it between her exposed thighs, just below the hem of her dress, which just went to demonstrate that it was too fucking short. My hand wrapped around the top of her thigh, so close to where I knew she longed to feel my hands on her, and she couldn't help the moan that escaped through her trembling little lips. I ghosted my palm down her thigh, and then brought my other hand to her leg on the opposite side. Together I slowly ran them back up, all the way to the top of her legs.

"Edward," she whispered again, trying to sound reproving, but it was far too breathy to sound anything but sensual, especially in my permanently aroused state. I scooted closer to her, still on my knees, the denim soaking through with dirty rainwater, pebbles digging into me almost painfully. I didn't care. I ran my nose along the inside of one of her thighs, right up to the top, the bottom of her dress tickling my cheeks. Bella always smelled so fucking delicious – like sugar and coconut and paradise. I opened my mouth and kissed the top of her thigh, snaking my tongue out to lick her sensitive skin then I blew lightly on it, sending goose bumps down her entire leg.

"Fuck, Edward," Bella breathed, twisting her fingers into my hair, holding me in place. _That's my girl, _I thought as I continued licking and kissing her thighs, getting dangerously close the place she wanted me most.

I nudged with my nose at the lacy fabric covering her pussy, then placed a hot, wet kiss over the top of it. Bella's entire body shuddered and her legs wobbled, threatening to give out on her if I continued. I was willing to push her a little further.

My hands coasted along her legs until they were cupping her ass cheeks where they peeked out from the back of her thong. I ran my hands back over her ass and down the backs of her thighs, my fingers tickling the over-sensitive insides of her legs as I worked my way down, still kissing her through the lace of her panties. I could feel the moisture seeping through them and the tremors that rocked through her body like a repeating aftershock every few seconds. I almost felt bad for teasing her so shamefully…almost.

I brought one hand up and quickly pulled the lace to one side, running the very tip of my tongue vertically up her slit, circling around her clit once for added emphasis. Bella cried out shockingly loud, and it dawned on me that this weekend had been as tortuous for her as it had been for me. She was aching to feel me just as badly. Her hand darted out and rooted around beside her, her eyes closed, too heavy to remain open. She gained purchase on the metal railing of the stairwell and wrapped her fingers around it, squeezing until her knuckles were glowing white. She leaned back and connected with the wall of the building, throwing her head back until it smacked into it, her body shuddering again as I made another slow pass over her with my tongue.

If Bella _smelled_ heavenly, then there were simply no words in the English language to describe how delicious she tasted.

I moved my hand that was still resting against her ass and slid it up over her dress and around to her stomach, holding her in place and rubbing circles with my thumb into her skin through the light fabric.

"Edward, fuck, shit…" she ground through her clenched teeth, her free hand digging into my hair and tugging at me, pulling me up off my knees. I was pretty sad about that and prayed she wasn't going to insist we go back into the club. I wasn't ready. She wasn't either. Her greedy little hands sought out my belt buckle, tearing through it and pushing my jeans and boxers down with urgency. I growled with delight. I had no shame when it came to the sheer desperation I felt to always be buried deep inside my girl; my best friend.

I pressed myself against her, sandwiching her between me and the brick wall. I reached down and grabbed her ass, lifting her to me. She wrapped her legs around my waist, locking her ankles and grinding herself against me. My exposed dick flinched from the cold air until Bella used her free hands, given that mine were busy keeping her suspended off the ground and pressed firmly against both myself and the bricks, to pull aside her panties enough to allow me in and I greedily complied, urgent to be sheathed in the warmth.

In one swift and powerful movement I forced myself into Bella, both of us screaming out from the euphoria as it rocketed through us. Bella wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned into me, burying her little face into me as I buried my cock inside her body. I no longer needed to use my hands to hold her up as she had herself wrapped so tightly around me, clinging to me, that if I let go she would not slip. Despite the unorthodox location, my heart swelled and pulsed, revelling in the intimacy. I took advantage of my new freedom and laced one hand tightly into her hair, tugging firmly and kissing along her neck, moaning into her shoulder as I moved inside her.

There wasn't a lot of room for movement, but we swivelled our hips against one another until the warm wave of my orgasm began crashing down on me. I wiggled my hand under her dress and between us to use my thumb to rub soft circles over her clit, hoping to bring her to a climax with me, because I was going to come either way. But I was always as attentive to Isabella as I could be. I loved her.

"Fuck, Bella, fuck," I groaned against her, my body shuddering with the first wave of release as I felt her clamp down around me. She squeezed me tighter to her, her arms around my head and my face compressed into her breasts as she screamed out so loud that I thought the club authorities were going to come storming through the back door looking for a woman in peril. She panted and whimpered as she slowly came down from the ride, clinging to me with everything that she had. I had already enjoyed the last wave of my own release and was momentarily taken aback by a surge of emotion as I held her to me, feeling her shiver and shudder as she finished riding hers out. My heart squeezed and tears welled in my eyes. I panted and blinked them away quickly, driving the helpless thoughts from my mind, refusing to think about our impending separation.

I pulled back and brushed aside the sticky hair from her neck and cheeks, trailing warm kisses tenderly across her salty skin, hoping I could keep my emotions at bay a little while longer. _Heaven and Hell. _

She released her grip on me and slid down the length of my body until her little heels clicked dully on the blacktop. I buckled up my jeans and quirked an eyebrow at her. She giggled and despite the emotional torment in my chest, it made me smile and my heart danced. I loved the sound of Bella laughing.

We stood there staring into one another's eyes for what could have been either seconds or hours, warm and adoring. Bella finally stepped away from the brick wall and walked around me toward the stairs again. Before she started climbing them she turned back, smirking at me. She nodded at my feet.

"Your shoe is still untied," she said, her voice gravelly with emotion and sex. I snickered and bent to tie it as she took the first step.

Suddenly, the heavy metal door swung open, smashing loudly against the railing behind it. Emmett and Rose came flying out, nearly crashing into Bella in the process. Bella stepped off the stair and stumbled backward, startled. She tried to grab onto the railing for balance and nearly fell as her fingers slipped over it without gripping. I stood up quickly and caught her, righting her, then backing away just as fast.

"Jesus Christ, guys. There you are," Emmett's voice boomed in the abandoned alley, the music pulsing through the open door where Rosalie stood behind him. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Uhm...Bella had a bit too much I think. She needed some air." I nodded over to Bella where she stood clinging to the metal railing beside me, legs still shaking and skin slicked with sweat. It was true that some of the older members of Jasper's band had alcohol upstairs in the VIP room, and that we had each had a few drinks. But both Bella and I knew that was not what had her wobbling and trembling on her feet. She glared at me but went along with it.

"Oh shit, Bella, you do look a little rough," Emmett observed with a small undertone of sympathy. I choked on a laugh and tried to cover it up with a cough. Rosalie eyed me speculatively but remained silent; we didn't know one another very well. I looked anywhere but at her.

"Okay, well…are you guys ready to head back?" Emmett piped up, then turned and walked past Rosalie and back into the club, but not without smacking her ass forcefully as he grazed passed her. I guided Bella with my hands on her waist in front of me and up the stairs. Rosalie held the door as we passed through, her beady little eyes narrowing on me as I ducked under her extended arm.

I spent the rest of the weekend thanking God that Emmett and Rosalie hadn't come out sixty seconds earlier and convincing myself that Rosalie just harboured a general disdain for me. not that she was continuously glaring at me because she suspected something.

Either way, I never got to hear the passionate symphony of the piano keys slamming against Bella's body as I took her against it. I made a mental note to ask my parents to buy a piano.

'Edward?" Bella's soft voice, warm and affectionate, pulled me from my reverie where I was lost in memories. Her delicate little fingers were twirling and stroking the hair at the base of my neck. I had come to rest my forehead against her shoulder as I wandered through the labyrinth of my memories. She pushed me back an inch and looked into my eyes, searching for an explanation as to where I had been.

She was still pressed against the doorjamb but now I was much, much closer to her than I had originally intended, nearly pressing my entire body against hers as she held me to her. She was silently comforting me though she wasn't sure why, she just knowing instinctually that I needed it. Because at the end of the day, when the lights were out and the bullshit had dissolved, whether we lay in bed together or separated by thousands of miles, we were best friends, and connected on levels that no words could ever articulate.

I brushed my fingers against her cheek and offered her a warm, yet weak, smile. She returned it, a glimmer of something unidentified in her eyes. I looked up over her shoulder and was met once again by the curious eyes of my entire family, scrutinizing our every interaction.

Ignoring them, I pushed away from Bella and backed into my room. Our bodies were frenzied from even that most chaste of contact. I walked over to the stereo that was still hooked up, though it no longer sat on the armoire that had been sold recently. Instead it was perched lonely on the hardwood floor next to a haphazard stack of cd cases. I turned it on and pressed play, the loud lyrics of the last song I was listening began reverberating through the hollow apartment, forcing everyone to move along and go about their business, and not push the tenuous ledge Bella and I had been tightrope-walking for the last ten years.

Bella smiled at me, her eyes soft and promising of a future I prayed nightly for. She turned and sauntered back into the living room. I knelt back to my file folders, but not until Bella had moved beyond my eye sight. I was thoroughly enjoying the subtle sway of her hips and ass as she walked away, those tight fucking leggings sending jolts of electricity straight to my seldom sated dick.

Sorting through stacks of papers, I chuckled, singing loudly along as "McFearless" floated through the room. It was a bittersweet and agonizing rock song that suited my mood flawlessly.

_So I know_

_I must show_

_It's my show_

_I must go_

_With my soul_

_Not my hand_

_Where I stand_

_It's my role_

_It's my soul_

The lyrics resonated deep in my bones, my heart, my memories, my love, my struggles, my life, my perseverance: _my soul._

_

* * *

_

The next chapter is written and should be up shortly.

Let me know if you are enjoying the details of Edward and Bella's "friendship" as much as I am.

Until the next memory is unearthed...

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	4. GoodBye

Your love lights my heart on fire, you have no idea! Thank you! Reviews are why us authors do this, to know people are enjoying the story and want more. And lets face it, SSward is so sweet, I have the hugest crush on him... I want much, MUCH more! Hopefully you do too. Thanks.

Air

~xox~

* * *

I climbed up from the unforgiving hardwood, my knees cracking and my back aching from being hunched over the files all afternoon. I had to walk away from the mind-numbing task for my sanity's sake. I left my bedroom and walked through the living room, feeling everyone's eyes on me as I walked into the kitchen ignoring them. I scrubbed at my eyes tiredly. My mom was standing at the counter carefully packing plates and utensils into boxes marked "fragile".

"Hi, baby," she greeted me, her large, warm smile melting me. I knew how lucky I was to have her, she was the best mother ever. Given that I wasn't exactly ready to allow all the pieces of my life to come crashing down and bury me alive just yet, I knew mom was safe. She never pushed me, not even as a kid. She always respected and encouraged my decisions. My parents raised good kids, they knew that, and we were rewarded with a lot of personal freedom, given that we never hung ourselves with it. None of us ever did.

I kissed her on her cheek and peered over her shoulder into the box in front of her on the counter.

"Honestly, mom, most of this stuff is crap, we should just throw it all away," I grumbled, holding up a plastic spaghetti ladle that had been left on a hot stove burner, resulting in a melted and deformed handle. She laughed and took it from me, returning it to the box gently.

"You aren't going to return to Seattle and instantly be swimming in money, Edward. You can replace things slowly. And until then, I am packing everything...including this." She held up half of a handheld cheese grater that had snapped years ago. I had no fucking clue where the other piece was. She made a face at it, laughing in her soft, comforting tone. I laughed with her and planted another kiss on the top of her head.

"Fine." I shrugged my shoulders.

I started helping her load everything, admittedly with much less vigilance, planning on depositing most of these boxes at the back door of the Salvation Army as soon as I was back in Washington. I was more than ready to shed all the crap and be an adult - with a proper fucking cheese grater.

I sighed and raked my fingers through my hair. Despite only being four o'clock in the afternoon, I was bagged. It had been a really long fucking day. _It had been a long nine years, _I thought. There was something about packing away almost a decade of your life that made you incredibly sentimental and nostalgic.

In many ways it felt like just yesterday that I had shown up to the apartment. It was small and empty. I remembered how hollow it sounded as I turned the key in the lock and my footsteps echoed against the hardwood. It didn't take me long to fill it with crap, and roommates who turned into my best friends. And much more crap. But it took a long, long time for it to not feel like a physical manifestation of loss, rather than the "opportunity" that everyone made the city sound like. Nothing about New York was easy.

*

I sat on the edge of my bed, the lights out except for the glow that trickled through the closed bathroom door that was situated between mine and Alice's room. I stared blankly at the supposedly unoffending white piece of paper in my hand.

_Delta flight 736_

_ Departing at 12:40pm, Gate S16_

_ Sunday, September 8  
_

I wanted to shred it and flush it down the toilet, but that wouldn't change the fact that in five days, I would be on that plane. Even if I wasn't, two days after that, Bella would be on her own flight headed to ASU in Tempe. I had never felt so utterly helpless. Time was flying by, relationship dynamics were going to change. _My life as I know it is over. _I loved my life. I was desperate to maintain the status quo. No matter how unrealistic that seemed.

I heard Allie rummaging around in the bathroom getting ready for bed. I quickly threw the ticket on my desk and lay back against my headboard, grabbing a book off my nightstand.

Predictably, seconds later my door flew open and Alice came bouncing in. She plopped down on the bed beside me in her pink flannel pyjamas, her short hair pulled into two little pigtails that always made her look like she had antennae. I smiled weakly at her. She narrowed her perceptive little eyes at me, and then the book that I realised too late was upside down - then the ticket next to me, and then me again. She grabbed the poor, defenceless hardback and threw with all her might across the room, her little face all twisted in anger. She laid her head against my shoulder, hugging me.

"Stay here, Edward," she whined. "Go to U Dub like Emmett. Pleeeeease."

I scoffed. The University of Washington was fine and all, but I was trying to follow in my father's footsteps and the generic, hometown university had nothing on Columbia. Especially if Bella was off in search of some sunny weather and perhaps a bit of an education if she could pencil it in between reading in the sun and trips to the beach. Washington was going to feel very empty without her glowing presence. I was grateful that I was the one walking away first, however selfish that was.

"I'm going to miss you too, Allie." I put my arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. Tears welled up in her eyes and her chin quivered. Shit.

"Al, you graduate next year anyways," I offered, hoping to redirect her attention and highlight the fact that she was not likely to hang around Forks after that either. She had big dreams of going to Paris or Italy to study fashion. I had no doubt my little sister would one day realise all those dreams. She was very ambitious, and incredibly stubborn - a true Cullen.

"I know," she snivelled, reminding me of the pouty toddler she once was. I half expected her to throw a temper tantrum. Then I remembered my book on the floor across the room and realised she already had. I chuckled lightly, still holding onto her.

"It'll be okay, Al, I promise." I wasn't sure which one of us I was trying to reassure more.

Three days later I found myself once again laid out on my bed, again with a beautiful girl. But this one had long mahogany hair that I was busy combing my fingers through, and she was definitely _not _my little sister. This girl was naked, as was I, curled together under the feather light weight of a sheet as the breeze cooled our warm, sweaty skin. The curtains billowed in the breeze from my open window. I loved the smell of summer. I loved the smell of sex with Bella in the summer. I hated that it was all coming to an end.

We had promised relentlessly that we were going to talk on the phone a million times a week, email every day and text message as often as our lame cell plans would permit. Somehow, it all seemed empty. The logical part of my nagging fucking brain knew how incredibly difficult that was all going to be. But still, with juvenile optimism, we promised.

Her soft fingertips were tracing patterns on my chest just below my collarbone as she hummed lightly. I ran my fingers over her arm and down her back, pulling the sheet up higher around us, feeling how chilled her skin was getting despite the balmy evening.

There was a party going on downstairs that we were astutely ignoring, preferring to spend every last moment wrapped in one another's arms rather than saying goodbye to kids we were glad to be rid of. My parents thought it was a good idea though, to have a kid's farewell party for me and Bella at the house. The next day we were going to all go out for pizza as a family to do the last minute fam thing. Then I would leave.

"Edward," Bella whispered, still gliding her fingertips across my chest, pulling one leg up higher where it was draped across my waist. Holding onto me tighter.

"Mmm?" I answered, drifting off and not caring if my parents returned to find us like that.

It took me a few minutes in my half-asleep state to realise she hadn't answered. I opened one eye lazily and looked down at her. The last of the evening light was receding slowly from the room and her face was bathed in shadows. My heart lurched. Fuck she was stunning. Her eyes were closed and her breathing slow and steady. I thought for a moment that perhaps she had just been muttering my name in her sleep, which much to my smug satisfaction, she often did. But then I heard her sniffing.

"Bella," I sighed. There wasn't a whole lot more to say.

"I just…I…" she trailed off, sighing heavily and shaking her head.

I knew what she was trying to say. I felt it too. Of course I felt it. This would have been painful had we just remained the ordinary best friends we had always been. But now I knew what it felt like to see a glimpse of her soul - to feel the inside of her and become a tangible piece of her. To share myself with her and have her give me everything of herself that she knew how to give. I knew what her body felt like when it was draped around mine like it was then, and the sharp twinges of pain when she dug her little fingernails into my shoulder, crying out my name. I knew what her lips felt like on every inch of my body and I knew what she tasted like. The depths of our knowledge and appreciation for one another seemed unparalleled. Our relationship was a necessity to our mutual survival. And we were being torn apart. It was devastating.

"I know," I said, because obviously I did.

"Edward," she said my name again, sounding like there was supposed to be more following it. I waited. She remained quiet.

I rolled her over, so that she was on her back and I was hovering above her.

"I know," I said much more forcefully. She nodded, sniffling again.

And then I made love to her again. Because I did love her. And I was going to miss her. Because she was my life. And because I was eighteen and I fucking could.

She held onto the back of my slatted headboard as I pushed in and out of her. Every time I pulled out she whimpered, and when I rocked back into her slowly, her eyes rolled back in her head and her entire body quivered. She bit her lip and her chest heaved. Sometimes I got so lost in watching Bella that I forgot I was a participant as well.

I rest my weight on my arms and bent down to suckle at her cute little pink nipples as they raised and heaved beneath me with her pants and moans. I circled my tongue around her, looking up at her to memorise every glorious detail.

The heat was building in my gut watching Bella whimper and pant in the throes of the pleasure I was bringing her. It nearly pushed me over the edge.

"Bella," I groaned through clenched teeth. Her name saying so much.

I love you.

I want you, always.

You feel unbelievable.

You are my very best friend.

"Edward," she breathed into my ear, trailing her lips down my neck.

Her legs tightened around me and my name fell from her lips in a desperate whispered chant over and over as she came, dragging me with her.

After that we were spent. We fell asleep holding one other and kissing softly, murmuring words of encouragement that we would survive the horror that was going to be university. We knew it was going to be a good thing in the long run - when was continuing your education ever a bad thing? _When it tears you from the only thing you never want to be away from, _my jaded conscious rebuked.

We had _very _briefly considered trying to stay near one another, but realised quickly that we had drastically opposing priorities when it came to picking a university. I was appalled to discover that Bella seriously wouldn't consider anything that wasn't located in the south-western quadrant of the country. The asinine prerequisite eliminated all of my choices which were all located in New England. And while I refused to consider places like UCLA and Texas A&M, she rolled her eyes and called me pretentious when I mentioned Dartmouth, Columbia, and Yale. We were at an impasse. But the full gravity of our decision to go separate ways hadn't fully sunk in until the summer began winding down. Once we started making travel arrangements and going over course timetables to figure out when we would be able to come back to Washington to visit. That was when the panic set in. And now, whenever I thought about not seeing Bella for months on end, my heart clenched and waves of pain washed through me. I gave myself a million silent daily pep talks, trying to convince myself that kids go off to university all the time, its what people do. And that despite everything, or perhaps because of it, no matter what happened Bella and I would always be friends. We had been through too much to not.

Somehow, the pep talks only made me more nervous.

No one thought twice about the fact that while I normally wolfed back an entire pizza by myself, I hadn't done anything but pick at the single piece in front of me since we arrived at the pizzeria. It was an old, converted log cabin in the middle of Forks where we went as a family most Fridays for as long as I could remember. But I was going to be on a plane in less than eighteen hours - that was all I could think about.

Emmett was in the corner slamming and shouting at a pinball machine and Alice was sitting on Jasper's lap telling him all about her recent purchases for back-to-school. I was pretty sure he didn't give a fuck what colour the "perfect" pair of boots were that she found, but I was thankful that he pretended to. I would have had to kick his ass if I thought I was leaving her in the hands of a prick.

My mom and dad sat across from me at the big picnic-style banquet table, talking excitedly about how much fun I was going to have, and reminiscing on their first years in university. Mom kept making sure I knew she was more than willing to come out with me and help me get unpacked and set up in the new apartment. While I loved her and appreciated the sentiment, and secretly wished she would come, that wasn't exactly the pussy, momma's boy kind of first impression I wanted to make on anyone. Dad was rambling about juggling "freedom with responsibility" and telling me that he knew I would excel, I always did. Bella hadn't eaten anything either.

She was sitting next to me, and for the life of me I couldn't understand how no one saw the misery between the two of us, slumped over and staring vacantly into our plates, and wonder about the exact parameters of our friendship. Though maybe everyone did notice and assumed the obvious - we were losing our best friend. My dad kind of sounded like the Peanuts teacher in the background of my awareness as I stared at my pizza, my eyes glazed over. I slid my hand across the bench and found Bella's. Neither of us looked up, but we spent the rest of the time at the pizza place silently holding hands under the table.

As we were filing out of the pizzeria I stopped Emmett in the parking lot just as he and Rose were splitting off from the rest of us to head over to his car.

"Hey, let me take the Jeep," I asked, holding my hand out for the keys. "You and Rose can ride with mom and dad. I need some air or something before we head back to the house."

Rose pursed her lips at me behind Emmett. I didn't have time to worry about what was up her ass, I just knew I was freaking out a little, feeling like I had just had my last supper or some shit. I needed to succumb to the urge to flee, even if it was just for an hour.

Em shrugged and dropped the keys into my palm. He was always the epitome of easygoing.

"Thanks. Tell mom I won't be too long." I smiled at him and tore off toward the Jeep. I unlocked the driver door and jumped in. Looking around confused, I jumped back out, standing on the doorframe and looking across the top of the open Jeep.

"Bella!" I shouted across the parking lot. She was walking with Alice looking a little lost.

"You want me to come?" she shouted back. I gave her a look that said 'no fucking shit' and she whirled around and ran toward the Jeep without saying another word to anyone. She climbed in and I tore out of the gravel parking lot.

"What's going on?" she asked, her voice smooth and compassionate. She pulled her heels up to the seat, her hair flying wildly around her face from the open top.

"I'm freaking out a little bit," I answered honestly. I could always be myself with Bella.

"I know, Edward. But it's just school. And you are brilliant and everyone always loves you. I have no doubt that you will be completely fine." While her words were sincere, I could hear the hint of doubt as she spoke them, though I didn't think it applied to me.

"So will you, ya know? You'll be fine too. You'll have the sun and the heat and your grandparents live nearby. What more could you ask for?" I was trying to be encouraging when all I wanted to do was keep driving until we were in the middle of nowhere, together. I did believe that Bella would be okay. Though she barely knew her mother's parents, it had to be somewhat comforting to know that they were near. And Arizona was much closer than New York, if she wanted to come home for a weekend she easily could. Whereas I felt like I was being fucking banished to Verona or something. _Willingly._

I pulled the Jeep up to the curb in front of a little park that we used to play soccer in as kids. It was just outside of Forks and sort of in the middle of nowhere. I killed the engine and we just kind of sat there, staring out the windshield at the empty field.

The silence wasn't awkward at all as it stretched on for almost an hour. Both our minds were obviously racing with our own thoughts. I was just glad to have a quiet place to organise mine inside my own mind. And I was nervous and I wanted my best friend to sit next to me while I did it.

"Come on," Bella cracked through the quiet with her sudden excited tone. She pushed open the heavy car door and jumped down. I followed her as she climbed over the hitching posts, catching her foot on the rope, and made her way across the field. It was early evening but the sun was still high in the sky as Bella climbed into a rusty black swing on the playground. I took the swing next to her. She reached out and took my hand in hers, pushing off the sawdust to move slowly through the air.

"Okay so you have to promise me something," she said, still sounding upbeat. It was forced, but I appreciated the gesture.

_Anything. _"Yes?"

"I would like a _full report _on which is better, Grey's Papaya hot dogs, or Lombardi's pizza." She beamed over at me, dead serious, her eyes sparkling. She was so fucking cute.

I pushed off my tip toes so I could bring my swing over to hers, still holding her little hand in mine. I brought my other hand up and laced it softly into her hair, cupping her head in my hand. I smiled at her briefly, my eyes warm and adoring, hers excited and serious, before I dipped my head down pressed my lips to hers. I kissed her slowly and tenderly, running my tongue across her bottom lip. She parted her lips and our tongues met and pet delicately. Bella's toes were brushing against my shins and I wanted to be closer. I twisted my swing further so that I was facing her and knotted my legs with hers. She reached up and grabbed onto the chains of my swing and pulled. We sat like that, tangled in each others swing and body until the sun started to sink below the horizon. Our kiss was intimate and peaceful, like we had all the time in the world and the only thing we wanted to do with it was kiss.

Bella was like a little angel. Her skin was glowing, her scent and taste was sweet. Her breath was warm on my lips and occasionally her delicate fingers would let go of one of the swing chains and stroke my cheek or comb through my hair. Our were legs tangled and our knees pressed together. The soft, enticing wet sounds from our lips moving in expert unison, and our gentle hums and moans were the only sounds that floated in the warm evening air. I ran my nose down the length of her neck, kissing the sweet spot just above her collarbone. I brushed my lips back and forth over the dainty bones and the exquisite skin stretched over them. Bella purred underneath me, her eyelids closed yet fluttering as I lavished on her, slow and soft. _All the time in the world. _

As the sun sank behind the trees and goalposts we slowed until our lips were just whispers against one another. Eventually, we stilled completely, and as I held her head between my hands, we just looked into each other's eyes, our noses grazing. I hated saying good-bye to her, but I knew it wasn't forever. We were friends above all else. No one knew me like she did, and vice versa.

Bella could read every emotion on my face from a mile away, and know exactly what I needed depending on the sentiment. She knew my favourite books and where I hid when I needed to be alone. She happily discovered the places I loved to feel her fingers glide over my skin and that I enjoyed falling asleep with my head peacefully nestled in her lap or against her breasts. She knew what I looked like when I cried. She knew the man I wanted to become and the life I wanted to have. And above all else, she knew unequivocally that I wanted her to always be a part of it.

As the sun glowed a vibrant orange behind her, lighting the seldom seen red in her hair afire, I recognised every dream and every worry that lapped like an ocean's tide behind her endless brown eyes. I knew the things that kept her up at night and why, and that when she was upset she liked to drink steamed milk with vanilla in it. I knew she loved to eat peanut butter sandwiches with pickles on them and that her favourite musician was Bob Dylan. I knew each arc and curve of her frame and the origin of her every scar.

Our friendship was an absolute devotion to one another. You can't say good-bye to that.

* * *

IKR?!?! This is supposed to be fluff... *sniff*

It is, trust me, this story is 99% lemon and fluff, but to tell their tale properly, there must be a few tears shed...cest la vie, right?

Lemme know how you are feeling about these two... they have so many more adventures ahead of them. I for one am pretty freaking excited!

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	5. I Guess I Will Just Have to Endure It

A/N: Hey, remember that 1% heartfail I warned you all about...?

Here it is. But it is brief but necessary. After all, these kids are in an odd kind of "friendship", and it had to come to a head at some point.

*reminds of you chapter one and the vanity scene*

Things will work out just fine, and then it will be all rainbows and butterflies, promise.

So let's get this over with...

* * *

Bella didn't come to the airport – she had to work. She could have easily rescheduled her shift. I didn't begrudge her. I would not have wanted to subject myself to the torture of a platonic good-bye in front of my family either, and then watch as the distance spread out painfully between us. I both respected and appreciated her decision.

As I stepped off the plane in New York and looked around, feeling anxious and lost. I navigated my way to the baggage claim to retrieve the two suitcases I brought filled with clothes. Everything else was shipped ahead of time to the apartment that my dad managed to secure me over the phone. It was in the middle of the city and, supposedly, quite close to campus. He bribed the landlord a hefty sum to mail me a copy of the keys ahead of time, and to leave my boxes in the living room, trying to make everything easier for me. All of which I was grateful for as I struggled to drag the two large suitcases and my messenger bag down the escalators and out into the cab corral.

I helped the cabbie load my stuff into the trunk and climbed into the car. I flipped open my cell phone and turned it on. It chimed noisily, much to the cabbie's displeasure, and buzzed in my palm as it booted up, indicating I had messages.

_We miss you already, baby. Call as soon as you land. – Mom and Dad _

_New York girls are skanky, double bag your shit, buddy. Make me proud. _

Emmett. I doubted the "proud" reference had anything to do with academics. But it made me laugh as the cab driver swore in a language I didn't understand and honked his horn profusely.

_What did Emmett say to you? He's laughing and won't let me see! Miss you! xox – Allie_

_I hate Washington already. What am I supposed to do with myself tonight? - B_

I also had several voicemails, all from mom. I was going to max out my cell plan in the first night just checking and responding to messages. I rolled my eyes. I knew I had to call mom and dad, but first Bella was all I could think about, I had to reply to her first.

_Do you want some "friendly" suggestions? - E_

I chuckled under my breath as I sent it. But then my heart lurched as I realised that was about as good as it was going to get for a very long time. I fingered the empty hunk of plastic in my hand with a heart so heavy I could feel it pressing against everything else inside me.

The cabbie pulled up to the curb in front of my new home. I paid and thanked him – which seemed to confuse him – and got my bags from the popped trunk. He pulled away seconds after the trunk slammed shut. _Welcome to New York, _I thought morosely. I wasn't sure I was ready for it, but I didn't have a choice.

My feet were made of lead as I scaled the way-too-fucking-steep concrete stairs leading to the buildings main door, trucking my bags behind me. I dug into my jacket pocket and retrieved the key ring my dad gave me. I had no idea which key was for the front door and which key was for my apartment as I stood fumbling with them.

Once I sorted out the key riddle, I found myself standing alone in the middle of a very small, very stuffy living room. It was obviously old as dirt, and it smelled funny. My boxes were scattered haphazardly throughout the room. One marked "fragile" was upside down. I scoffed, _New York indeed,_ and wondered exactly how much dad paid the guy to "take care" of my boxes.

I tipped over a suitcase and sat on it, dialling home. Mom answered on the first ring, clearly waiting by the phone. I relayed in excruciating detail every minute since she last saw me. From what movie I watched on the plane – _Spider Man – _using the term "watched" loosely. To what my new apartment looked like – _intimidating. _After mom got all weepy sounding and dad came on to wish me luck, I hung up, promising to call again tomorrow.

As the call ended and I closed the phone, it buzzed again in my hand. I flipped it back open to see another message from Bella.

_How friendly? -B_

I laughed, the sound echoing in the empty space, and typed back a quick response.

_As friendly as you like. I really miss you. –E_

I closed the phone and went to turn on some lights since the sun was going down and it was getting dark in the apartment. With much effort and a long string of profanities, I pried open the swollen windows in the front room to let some fresh air in. My stomach rumbled loudly, calling my attention to how starving I was. Since the empty living room was really fucking depressing, I quickly decided to leave it behind in search of food, feeling a dichotomous struggle between grown up and terrified.

Sitting at a green, road-grime covered, plastic table outside a pizza shop that was thankfully only two blocks from my house, my phone buzzed inside my pocket.

_I miss you too. –B_

I was kind of disappointed that was all she had to say. Although, I was also a bit relieved given that we had never really sent dirty text messages to one another before, and I had no clue what to say. Well…I knew what I _wanted _to say_._ I just didn't know how much was appropriate given the new dynamic. We left without ever slapping a real label on us, inherently knowing that it would be useless. We had no idea what was waiting for us at university. The only thing we did know was that our friendship was iron-clad.

I ate my pizza slowly, remembering the last time pizza was in front of me and feeling homesick already. I felt like such a little pansy, sulking over pizza, but I had never been away from my family before. I knew it was going to be hard.

My assessment proved to be quite accurate as I got lost trying to figure out the best way to campus. Books turned out to be so expensive that I wasn't sure I was going to be able to eat for a week, and I lost the keys to the apartment – all in the first three days.

After a huge lecture in an accent so thick, I gratefully only understood a third of it, I was handed over new keys. Five days later, I was in the basement kicking the shit out of the laundry machine that all the units in my building shared, swearing profusely.

It finally started working, so I decided to walk away and save it from further abuse...until it stepped out of line again. I was glowering at it when a thought struck me and my blood ran cold. It was Friday night, or rather, a few minutes after midnight, which I guess technically made it Saturday morning. I grabbed my cell and flipped it open. I punched the numbers that were already stored in my memory, noticing the date on the back screen flickering Saturday, September 13 – I wasn't too late.

"Hello?" Bella answered her dorm room phone after five rings.

"Hey, birthday girl!" I smiled into the phone. I hated that I was missing her birthday for the first time since she was born.

"Edward!" she squealed. I held the phone away from my ear, laughing at her. My heart swelled. "But it isn't my birthday just yet."

"It is in New York. Hey, are you slurring?" I was completely taken aback. Bella rarely drank. I loathed the idea of her getting drunk with people she barely knew and in an environment I couldn't be there to control. I was completely powerless.

"No!" She was overly defensive.

"Riigghht," I decided to joke around with her, I wasn't her father after all. Whatever I was, she didn't need a lecture from me of all people.

"Shhh..." she slur-whispered into the phone. God, she was cute.

"I take it you're, uhm, celebrating already?"

"Oh my god, Edward. The people in my dorm are so funny and awesome and friendly. And when I told them it was my birthday tomorrow, like, the _entire _floor threw me a party. You should see it, Edward. It's so cool. Everyone's doors are open, and we are all just roaming around like its one big common room. And there's tons of music and...rum. It's awesome."

Bella loathed birthdays. She always had. She hated whenever anyone made a fuss over her, and always felt uncomfortable when people bought her gifts. It made me feel like shit that the first birthday that she was willingly enjoying was the first one I was away from her for. Which I knew was entirely selfish – she sounded so happy, and I could hear her new friends calling her, and the music in the background. So I felt worse for being such a prick. I forced a laugh out and hoped she was drunk enough not to notice the hurt behind it.

"Bella, that sounds great. I'm glad you're having fun. I hate that I'm not there."

"Me too." Her voice sounded genuinely sad. Like the selfish jerk that I was - it made me feel better. "What are _you_ doing?"

Fuck. "Uhm...you know, just hanging out and stuff," I muttered, eyeing the dryer. "Hey, you should go back to the party. I can hear them calling you."

"Yeah, they made me a birthday milkshake," she giggled. "Which is just milk and Kahlua shaken with ice until it's all foamy and weird. But yummy."

Again, I fought the urge to lecture.

"Have fun, Bella. I miss you."

"Oh, Edward. I miss you too!"

We hung up after. I slumped against the dryer, hating life.

School started a week later. . .I quickly realised the courses I selected over the summer were going to be the death of me. My workload was intense. I longed for the lazy, undemanding first week of high school.

Navigating the city campus layout had me late for class on multiple occasions, which I hated, and I barely had any time to talk to my family because I was so drained by the end of the day that I assed out early every night. I considered it a successful night if I managed to strip off my jeans first.

The one plus side was that I found two roommates by the third week of classes. They were two guys from my sociology class that seemed pretty cool. They needed something closer to campus, so I offered up my place. It had another room in addition to mine, and a den without a doorway, but the space could easily be made a bedroom of sorts. They were locals and knew each other in high school. With their help, soon I was no longer getting lost, and also knew all the best places in the city to get any ethnicity of food imaginable.

By the end of the first month, I had fallen into a decent routine, made up with the dryer-beast in my basement, came to terms with the fact that the homework was going to own my ass, and came to realise that I really liked Ethiopian food. Who the fuck knew?

While I apprectiated all of that, I still ached for my family, and especially Bella. We spoke on the phone almost daily, which I was grateful for. I tried to warn my parents ahead of time, who graciously offered to keep paying my cell bill, that it was going to be astronomical the first month. It was. They understood, but "gently" urged me to try and use it a little less. Which meant calling Bella less. Which meant _hearing _her soothing, reassuring little voice less.

As it was, it was difficult, despite all the new friends and distractions, to be away from her. It killed me that at the end of the day I couldn't share everything with her. I tried to remember all the million things throughout the day that I wanted to share with her so I could send her an email later - but I always forgot most of them. It was only a month and I was slowly beginning to feel disconnected from her and her new life in Arizona. I was sure she had to be feeling the same way about me.

**From:** Bella Swan  
**Subject:** Grrrr…  
**Date:** October 24, 7:37pm  
**To:** Edward Cullen

I think I might hate being an adult and have recently decided that I would like to give the middle finger to responsibility and be a kid forever. Are you in?

School is kicking my ass hard. You are taking two more courses than I am. How you haven't run home crying is beyond me. You've always been stronger than me. I wish you were here right now. I could use one of your dorky, little pep talks. I'm lonely and tired and stressed out. I just got back from hanging out at my new favorite place. It's called Cafe Biblioteca. It's a cute little coffee shop by the front doors of the library. I pretty much live there. So ya know, if you want to come surprise me, that's where you will find me (hint hint).

My roommate is annoying. She is pledging a sorority and keeps begging me to "rush" with her. Can you imagine me in a sorority? It's kind of laughable. But she has made a bunch of new friends through rushing and has introduced me to them all. So that's good I guess. Tonight we are supposed to go out for what apparently is universally recognized as "Thirsty Thursday". I had planned on starting on my Comm paper…guess not.

I miss you.

-Bella

**From:** Edward Cullen  
**Subject:** Re: Grrrr…  
**Date:** October 25, 9:18am  
**To:** Bella Swan

If you make it a habit to go out and get wasted instead of working on your Comm paper's then you will eventually flunk out. I like this plan as it means you will have loads of free time and you can come visit me in New York. Are you in?

I wish I could just get on a plane and surprise you. There is honestly nothing in the world I would rather do right now. Especially given how fucking boring the history chapter is I am falling asleep reading.

I miss you too. You don't give yourself enough credit. You are the strongest person I know.

-E

P.S. Please do NOT join a sorority.

**From:** Bella Swan  
**Subject:** Re: Grrrr…  
**Date:** October 25, 10:32pm  
**To:** Edward Cullen

Oh god, no sorority, I promise. From what I can tell that is SO not my scene. Are the sorority girls as annoying in New York as they are in Arizona? They actually have a day where they are forced to where their "letters". No thanks. My roommate rushed tri-delt, whatever that is. It basically dominates her time. I feel kinda bad for her.

I talked to Charlie today. He wants me to call my grandparents...it seems kinda weird though. But I guess I will.

Any weekend plans big-city-boy?

-B

**From:** Edward Cullen  
**Subject:** Re: Grrrr…  
**Date:** October 25, 10:49pm  
**To:** Bella Swan

No plans. Shitton of homework. X-box with roommates who are better at most games than Emmett and school me every time. Dinner somewhere close because there is nothing except rotting leftover Thai food in our fridge, and I am too tired and lazy to walk too far or to get groceries.

Sorority girls are shallow and easy...everywhere. I will tell Charlie this if you decide to pledge.

Call your grandparents. You have nothing to lose.

Call ME. I fucking miss you.

-E

**From:** Bella swan  
**Subject:** Re: Grrrr…  
**Date:** October 25, 11:02pm  
**To:** Edward Cullen

I dare you to call Charlie and explain to him precisely how easy you think I am. ;)

Calling right now… xox

-B

The phone call was great. To hear her voice was exactly what I needed. But it ended too soon. I went to bed immediately after.

I laid in bed staring at the ceiling wishing like hell I could go home for Thanksgiving. There was just no way I could. I had too heavy of a course load and was struggling already. I knew Bella was going home. I knew her and Charlie would have dinner with my entire family...minus me. I wanted to be there. I wanted to see Bella. I wanted to hold and make love toher.

I glanced at my closed bedroom door. I could hear my roommates playing the X-Box I brought with me from Washington, despite Emmett's grumblings. The game boomed through the entire apartment, along with their swearing and trash-talking. I shifted in bed uncomfortably.

It had been a really long month. Loonngg. I looked back to the door. I had yet to even help myself in the matter, I was so busy adjusting and drowning in schoolwork. I scanned the room tentatively. Deciding - I yanked my sweat pants and boxers down and spat into my palm, keeping the blankets pulled up around me just in case. I felt like I was fourteen again and afraid of getting caught.

I shut my eyes so I could tune out my obnoxious roommates and tried to picture Bella instead. I fought to recall exactly how it felt to hold her little body in my arms and push myself deep inside her. I remembered the way she would shudder and pant every time I rocked into her. The warmth of her body sliding against mine, the contentment of familiarity. I dragged up every image I could conjure up of Bella's naked body as my hand stroked up and down over myself, twisting my wrist at the top for an added thrill.

My head pushed back into the pillows as the sensations started taking over, churning in my belly, my thighs trembling.

In my imagination, I was drawing her pert little nipple into my mouth, sucking and biting. Swirling my tongue around her raised flesh, challenging myself to make her cum from that sensation alone. I had been successful in that before. She would claw at my shoulders and back, and her legs would quiver around me. I imagined myself moving down her body to place hot kisses everywhere. I didn't even get to the really good part in my little fantasy before I felt the heat in the palm of my hand and my belly quaked with the release. I quickly reached over and grabbed my discarded sweats, cumming all over them.

_Well...that was messy,_ I thought as I scrunched my nose up at the dirty sweatpants. I wiped myself off and threw them in the plastic laundry hamper in the corner of the room. I pulled on a clean pair of boxers, washed my hands in the bathroom sink that was connected to my bedroom, and climbed back into bed. The streetlight from outside my window illuminated the space in an odd way. Somehow, I was more frustrated than satisfied. I threw my head back in annoyance. It smacked into the wall. I didn't have a headboard on my bed in New York. I barely had something that qualified as a mattress.

"Fuck," I muttered under my breath, rubbing the back of my head, my hands still wet.

Agitated and restless, I reached over and grabbed my cell off the nightstand, which was actually just a folding TV tray.

_I can't sleep. –E_

It vibrated with a reply almost instantly.

_Me either, although that's probably because it's not even 9 yet ;) – B_

Oh yeah, the time difference. There wasn't really a lot left to say to that. I set my phone back down and pulled a pillow over my head to drown out the booming video game and the creepy light.

I woke up late the next morning since I didn't need to set an alarm on a Saturday. I rolled over and stretched, kicking the blankets off me and onto the floor, still feeling annoyed for some reason. I noticed my phone was flashing.

_I miss you. –B_

Fuck. The message was sent ten minutes after her last one.

_I fell asleep, sorry. I miss you too, Bella. So much, it's unbelievable. –E_

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon while I was balancing my laptop on my knees at a coffee shop, Bella replied.

_I guess you were able to sleep after all. –B_

For some reason, I felt like an asshole for falling asleep. I wanted to apologise. I wanted to tell her that I masturbated to thoughts of her - of us. I wanted to tell her that despite the new friends and the parties that I rarely attended, she was always the first person I thought about when I woke up, and clearly she was the last before I went to sleep. I wanted to get on a fucking plane and surprise her in the stupid coffee shop so that I could hug her until her ribs ached because it was so goddamn frustrating feeling like we were drifting apart. There seemed to be nothing I could do about it. And it hadn't even been two months.

I didn't reply. I didn't know what to say.

There had to be room for both my old life and my new life to exist simultaneously. Right?

I couldn't go home for Christmas. I had a dual semester History class and was slated to give a presentation and a twelve page research essay due the first week of January. I was continuously cursing my decision to convince my advisor that I could handle taking a few upper level courses along with my first year pre-requ's.

My mother was devastated. So was I.

I had a bunch of calls, emails and texts from everyone through the holidays, wishing me well and telling me how bummed they were that I wasn't there. They all understood, and while disappointed, my parents applauded my dedication to my studies. The holidays went on without me.

One night in February, after way too many beers that we somehow managed to get our hands on, me and my roommates thought it would be a good idea to take a break from killing each other on the X-Box to comb the streets of New York City at 2am. Soon after, we sat, obviously drunk, downing our papaya and pina colada flavoured drinks and scarffing back hotdogs like they were going out of style. I had to admit, New York had its benefits.

I was laughing so hard I almost choked on my hotdog as my roommates bantered and shoved one another debating, who was winning at Call of Duty. Inspiration hit as I bit into my second hotdog. I sat my huge drink down on the top of the picnic table and dug my cell out of my pocket.

_Definitely Gray's, btw. –E_

It was the first text message I had sent Bella since Christmas. The ones we exchanged then were nice - sweet and whimsical. We missed each other a ton. Add that to the angst of the holidays and we were quite the sappy pair. Granted we both had the time to dedicate to being emotional with the break from courses and nothing to do all day. As soon as school picked back up again, we got sucked back into our own whirlwind world's and our contact slowed.

_Huh? -B_

She didn't remember? I was easily offended in my intoxicated state.

_Hotdogs or pizza, remember? The answer is hotdogs, by far. –E_

_ Oh right. Wait, hotdogs at 2:30am…are you drinking by any chance? –B_

_ It's New York, Bella. They are open 24 hours. And they are fucking delicious. –E_

_ You didn't answer my question. –B_

_ Yeah, well you never call me anymore. –E_

_ Hmm... Definitely drinking… –B_

I sneered and closed the phone, jamming it back into my jeans pocket. Things were so different.

**From:** Edward Cullen  
**Subject:** APB  
**Date:** April 21, 9:57pm  
**To:** Bella Swan

Before I launch the police search, just making sure you're alive and well...

-E

**From:** Bella swan  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 10:38pm  
**To:** Edward Cullen

Hahaha. You haven't been particularly chatty either, mister. I'm alive. Well is up for debate... Middle of midterms so... Enough said, right?

-B

**From:** Edward Cullen  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 10:47pm  
**To:** Bella Swan

Definately enough said. I just had one in History that may have killed me. Its freezing balls here. Incase you were wondering...

Glad your alive.

-E

**From:** Bella swan  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 10:52pm  
**To:** Edward Cullen

Sorry about your luck. It's a lovely 86 here and I'm in shorts and a tank.

I know what you mean about midterms killing you. I might have, maybe, kind of got a D on a Sociology exam. Whoops.

-B

**From:** Edward Cullen  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 10:56pm  
**To:** Bella Swan

Bella! Guess you WILL have the time to come see me in New York if you keep that up!

-E

**From:** Bella swan  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 11:03pm  
**To:** Edward Cullen

Save the lecture, Edward. And New York scares me.

-B

**From:** Edward Cullen  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 11:11pm  
**To:** Bella Swan

Believe me, Isabella, that WAS the abbreviated version of my lecture. And don't be ridiculous, NYC isn't scary.

-E

**From:** Bella Swan  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 11:16pm  
**To:** Edward Cullen

It used to scare you.

-B

**From:** Edward Cullen  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 11:18pm  
**To:** Bella Swan

That feels like a long time ago.

-E

**From:** Bella swan  
**Subject:** Re: APB  
**Date:** April 21, 11:21pm  
**To:** Edward Cullen

Tel me about it...

-B

I went home for Mother's Day. Bella obviously didn't.

She called me one day the first week of June. I was sitting on the grass outside the university quad with a group of friends cramming for my last final. A frisbee flew over my head right as my phone rang. One of my roommates jumped up and grabbed it, quickly flinging it back and nearly taking my fucking head off in the process. I laughed, slightly miffed, as I answered the call while swearing at him. The girl who the frisbee was launched at squealed from somewhere close behind me just as I spoke.

"Hello," I laughed into the phone without checking the call display.

"Umm...is this a bad time?" Bella's hesitant little voice sounded in my ear. She had my attention instantly. From her tone, I could envision her biting on her lower lip.

"Bella, hey." I jumped up and quickly walked away from the crowd so I could hear her better. "No, not at all. What's up?"

"Uhh..." She sounded nervous. Which really fucking annoyed me. It was just _me _for christ's sake. Had shit really changed that much in nine months?

"I was just calling to see what day you were coming home?" I knew she talked to Alice practically every day and could have easily got that information from her. I figured it was a good sign that she was calling me to get it instead, though I loathed the fact that she felt like she needed a reason to call in the first place. But in all fairness, I couldn't remember the last time I picked up the phone and called her.

"Well...my last final is Monday," I answered. "But I have to pack and stuff. Mom bought a ticket for Thursday morning, so I'll be home in time for Allie's graduation."

"Oh. Cool." Awkward silence.

"You?" I honestly didn't know.

"Uhm...tomorrow. I just wrote my last final this morning."

"Oh yeah, how'd it go? Any more D's?" I rolled my eyes at myself. The conversation was painfully generic.

"No! I should have never told you that. It went okay, I think. It was a mythology class. I actually really liked it so it wasn't so bad. Despite the lectures being at eight am." She laughed, but it sounded off. I didn't know she was taking a mythology class.

"Mythology," I scoffed. I meant to just sound teasing.

"Yes, mythology. It satisfied the requirement and was a really interesting course, thank you very much." Shit. She was offended.

"Down tiger, I was just kidding," I chuckled into the phone, hoping to ease the tension that was quickly snowballing. "I'm jealous. I literally despised every class I took this year. Okay maybe not the first half of my history class, but it got really fucking hard in the second semester."

Silence.

"Uh...Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"Uhm...okay, I guess I'll just see you when I get home," I muttered lamely into the phone, kicking a runaway soccer ball back to some girl.

"Sure." _Snowball. _

"Have a safe flight."

"You too. Bye."

I ended the call praying we could fix the awkward strain in person because we sure as shit were not doing so well any other way. Next Thursday couldn't come fast enough.

It came. And went. Before I knew it, I was back in the comfort of my _real _home while my roommates were left to their own volition for the summer at the New York apartment. I cringed to think of the bedlam the place was going to be in when I returned in a few months.

I was equal parts excited and terrified to see Bella. We had drifted apart at record speed over the course of the school year, and I wasn't sure how that was going to translate into seeing each other.

I pushed through the door to the kitchen from the garage with two trays of coffee in my hands – the time difference causing me to be up uncharacteristically early. It was early Friday morning of Alice's graduation. Bella was curled up in the bay window overlooking the backyard, eating a peanut butter sandwich. She turned to look at me as I kicked the door open, balancing the trays in my hands. She jumped up and grabbed the most precariously positioned tray, setting it on the counter. She offered me a shy smile as she turned back to me.

"Thanks," I said stupidly, not sure what else to say or do.

"No prob. "

"Hi, by the way," I quipped, but flashed her my best smile, the crooked, squinty eyed one I knew she couldn't resist. Or...she never used to be able to.

She looked so different, I was stunned to say the least. She seemed skinnier, but curvier, if that was possible. Her hair was shorter and the red was much more pronounced. Her face had an odd glow to it and even her movements seemed older, more mature. I wondered if I looked any different. I didn't think I did.

She was in an old, familiar pair of jeans and a red tee shirt. She looked beautiful. I raked my fingers through my hair, feeling oddly unsure of myself suddenly. I grabbed a latte out of the tray and offered it to her with a quirked eyebrow while she muttered a greeting back to me.

She graciously accepted with an eager nod.

"What...no pickles?" I joked, nodding at the half eaten sandwich. She glared at me, a smile on her lips.

"There aren't any," she said. I laughed. Alice stormed the room in a flurry, grabbed a coffee, Bella's hand, and tore off up the back stairwell like the tazmanian fucking devil.

"Okay then, nice chat..." I muttered under my breath into the empty room. I pulled a scone out of one of the bags and shoved a big chunk into my mouth.

The rest of the day was a whirlwind. Alice was among the top in her class and gave a speech. Dad teared up. It was easier for him though, knowing she was planning on staying close to home for the first few years after graduation in order to earn a fashion design degree - which I didn't even know existed in the real world, but apparently, they do. And unless I had five hours to kill, I did not plan on ever challenging its real world merit to Allie ever again.

We were all exhausted by the end of the day. Alice was off with her friends and Jasper celebrating, everyone else was draped over either a chair or a couch in the front room – utterly spent. I was especially tired given that it was already well into the next morning as far as my body was concerned. I was drifting off with my legs hanging over the end of an overstuffed chair-and-a-half when I felt someone's eyes on me.

I begrudgingly opened my eyes, grumbling, to see Bella sitting on the floor at my head. She was cross-legged and staring at me pensively, biting her nails. I scanned the room and realised everyone else had either left or gone to bed.

"What the hell are you doing?" I groaned, wanting to be asleep.

"You look different," she answered immediately, sounding way too fucking perky. _I guess that answers that. _

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Nothing I can put my finger on. Just...different." She looked down at her fingers, toying with the hem of the skirt she was still wearing from the ceremony. She bit her lip. It did things to me that I figured would be highly inappropriate to act on given the strain we were under. I shifted towards her.

"So do you. You cut your hair." I twirled a piece of it around my fingers, then dropped it back where it landed right at her shoulder in illustration.

"Yeah," she nodded, not offering anything more.

Mom came in from the kitchen in her robe with a cup of tea and a book. I knew she wouldn't be going to bed until Alice was home safe and sound. She told me to go upstairs to bed before I fell asleep on the chair. I grumbled in agreement and dragged myself up the stairs, my eyes lingering on Bella as she continued to stare into her lap. Before I drifted off, I wondered where Bella was planning on sleeping.

The rest of the summer dragged on in a similar fashion. Truthfully, I was always out with Emmett and Jazz who I had really grown to like, while Bella and Alice were often in the city shopping for her new career as a college student - which apparently required truckloads of new things. My dad's Visa had to be exhausted. Allie had always been beyond spoiled, so no one said anything. It was cute and comical the way a duvet cover could make her light up.

There was one time, at a party a month after we had come home, that Bella and I were sitting on the couch of someone's house and the conversation flowed easily. It was probably thanks to the drinks, but it was nice. Things felt almost normal again, whatever that fucking was.

At one point, she was laughing so hard at something I'd said that I grabbed her drink out of her hand so she wouldn't spill it all over us. Which only made her laugh harder. It was true she looked strikingly different, more seasoned somehow, but she also looked exactly the same. Her eyes glistened in a familiar way, still housing all the things that only I knew. She bit her lip like she always and did that precious looking-up-through-her-eyelashes thing that always killed me.

She did it then, and I sat her drink on the floor at our feet and reached out to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She looked at me, and for a moment, I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't care less about the room full of people. I just wanted to know what Bella wanted me to do.

Could I kiss her? Would she want me to or would she get pissed off? Would it be too presumptuous to assume I had any right? Yet again, I cursed my inability to read minds as the moment slipped away, and my hand fell awkwardly back to my own beer bottle. She looked away quickly and changed the topic to make a funny comment about how Jessica had gained weight and that it kind of served her right for always being such a jerk.

The moment was long gone.

It didn't come back.

Summer carried on.

I grew more and more frustrated and hurt. The summer did not even faintly resemble what I had hoped it would. But still...it was me and Bella. I remembered the muddy faces in her picture frame that I knew sat on her dorm room desk –and I had faith.

We would endure the rocky times. We always did.

* * *

Ahhhh... the juvenile optimism is a resilient thing, isn't it?

I hope you are too mad at me. I think this is a realistic process for two people such as these kids to work through.

Believe me, sweet, loveable, squeezable SSward returns in full force the next chappy...and he gets the girl. I will post that chapter tomorrow to compensate for this crappy chap :(

Please let me know your thoughts, I thrive off of them.

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	6. Fighting For It

SEE!

I make good on my promises, I take care of you. Where do you think SSward gets it from? *snicker*

This chapter starts rough, but ends beautifully.

*hands you tissues*

Now you are ready...off you go...

* * *

My right leg bounced wildly from nerves as I sat in the confining airplane seat staring out the window. The elderly woman beside me grumbled under her breath, glaring pointedly at my bobbing knee, but I couldn't find the will to stop. I was so fucking scared of going home. It was all I could think about.

It was my third Christmas since leaving Forks, and the first time I was going home for it. I had not been able to make it back as much as I, and my family, would have liked since moving to New York. Cramming twenty 20 credits into each a semester, many of them upper level courses, and getting a job with the university had really anchored me to the city.

_Anchored me to all the wrong things._

When I first left for school, Bella and I had tried to stay connected, but inevitably, we failed. We allowed our workload to dominate. The calls got shorter and more forced, the emails came at a slower pace, and the text messages that said "thinking of you" stopped altogether. Our school, jobs, and new freedom granted us little time for much else. Slowly, everything ceased.

I no longer had that juvenile optimism that once allowed me to hope for the best outcome. It was what it was now.

My optimism was squandered my first summer back in Forks. I was so hopeful that, though we had drifted apart over the year away, Bella and I would reconnect in person. We didn't. While there were a small spattering of wonderful moments spent together that summer, there were many, many uncomfortable ones. Awkward and uncomfortable was not something Bella and I had ever had to deal with. Even after our friendship boundaries were pushed beyond the norm, things were always secure between us.

The year away really made everything take a nose dive. Our foundation was strong, but we had fucked around with it…literally. And that placed us somewhere in a weird and painful purgatory of undefined relationship parameters that, rather than dealing with, we ignored until everything festered and exploded violently.

As the summer was drawing to a close and I had to leave for New York, Bella and I were at a party together, along with all the old usuals. There was way too much booze. That was mistake number one. Bella was wearing a little pair of shorts that left nothing to the imagination. That was mistake number two. Or maybe it was how painstakingly close I analyzed them that was the error. Either way…I was convinced those teeny, little, fucking, pink, plaid, shorts…were the devil. Also, I hadn't been laid in a really long time.

And there was a lot of booze.

Somehow, I still can't recall exactly, Bella and I ended up in the back seat of my old car, steaming up the windows and panting each others name. She felt so familiar and warm. Her body fit perfectly against mine, straddling me while I clutched onto her as tight as I could. We moved expertly together and responded instinctually to one another's touch.

But then it was over. We shuddered together, hot and sticky, clinging to the last shred of our release. And then we had to look up and acknowledge the damage we had done. We had sweat out any alcohol we consumed - the liquid courage that led us to the car in the first place. The silence was so thick it choked us.

Wordlessly, Bella climbed off my lap, wriggled back into her Satan-spawn shorts, and left before I could formulate a single, coherent sentence. That was that was the last time I saw her.

I was back on a plane the next morning. I avoided all future opportunities to come home again like the fucking plague, even Christmases. I was being a selfish prick and I knew it. My family missed me. I just couldn't manage to make that a higher priority than my own pride. I was confused and wounded.

I did come home for five days in April, but only after Alice mentioned one night on the phone that Bella and some college buddies were heading to California for Spring Break. Alice and Jasper were going to meet them there a few days later, since their term break schedules overlapped but did not line up perfectly. I conveniently came home in time to spend a few days with my baby sister, who was not such a baby anymore, before she took off to California, knowing that Bella would not be there.

I stayed in New York all that summer. I legitimately had too. I was taking summer courses trying to finish my undergraduate degree early and juggling office hours at the university doing administrative stuff for extra cash. Thankfully, my family came to me for two weeks while my roommates went to visit with their parents. I always missed my family, so it was great having them all file out to come see me.

Emmett brought Rosalie and the new rock she was sporting. Alice had Jasper, and Mom and dad stayed at The Mark, while everyone else crashed with me. We had a great time visiting and doing all the typical, cheesy tourist crap. We ate at the best restaurants, and then at night, after mom and dad left us to our own volition, we partied our asses off. The only thing missing...was Bella. Despite how _thoroughly _I tried to force myself not to think of it, it was not easy. She had been a part of my family since birth. I felt the loss acutely.

Eventually, they had to leave and another school year commenced, and I was alone. Now it was the holidays again. I could not, despite all my bitching and excuses, get myself out of another Christmas away from home. Truthfully, I really missed Christmas at my parent's house. My mom always made everything perfect.

So there I was, shaking, cloaked in a heavy sense of dread, waiting.

The irritated woman next to me was very grateful to see the plane land in Sea-Tac six hours later. Myself - not so much. My stomach heaved and lurched, and my hands shook. I clenched and unclenched them into fists, trying to steady them as I made my way off the plane, taking deep, shaky breaths.

Much to my relief, Bella was no where to be found. My lonely little heart trembled at the sight of my family waiting for me. Mom hugged me and cried – I teared up. Dad slapped me on the back. Emmett said something inappropriate, and Alice was adorable. Rose glowered at me, though a slight, friendly smile played at her lips. I noticed it as I glanced at her over Alice's little shoulder while I squeezed her, lifting her up off the floor. They were all perfect. I felt like shit for not coming home more often. I vowed to change that, despite my falling out with my best friend.

The car ride home wasn't as painful as I had envisioned. I absentmindedly asked Rosalie how the wedding plans were coming along, just looking for something to say to her. Emmett grumbled something under his breath, earning him a slap aside the back of his head from the blushing bride herself, while mom, Rose, and Allie all squealed in unison. For the next hour I couldn't get a word in edge-wise as the three of them yammered on excitedly about colours, dresses, venues and what kind of tux I was going to wear.

I just smiled at them and nodded appropriately. Enough time spent in a house with two, usually three, women growing up had taught me that while on the surface the conversation appeared directed at me – it wasn't. They had no interest in my male input and would probably glare profusely at me should I make a noise other than "mmm" or "wow". I was a fast learner. Though apparently, not at all things.

I tried not to think about the shitstorm that was my fucked up friendship with Bella as we made our way back to Forks. I knew that it was probably going come to a head sometime over the next two weeks, but I forced myself to grant my undivided attention to the beautiful, rambling women in my life as they continued animatedly discussing the impending wedding.

Bella was not at the house when we pulled up late that night, nor did she come around the next day. The third day that I was there I stumbled down the stairs for breakfast, banging around in the kitchen, helping myself to some cereal. Mom came in from the front room, smiling but shaking her head disapprovingly at my dishevelled mop of hair and shabby sweats.

"You need something more substantial than cereal, Edward," she pled, pulling the box from my hand.

"Mom, I've fed myself without input for the last three years. I think I can manage," I grumbled back at her.

Her warm eyes flashed angrily at me before dissolving back into their usual soft brown. I regretted the tone of my response instantly, but everyone knew I was not a morning person. I glanced at the clock on the microwave, 12:43. Make that, an early afternoon person.

The door to the kitchen swung open and a couple of bouncy dark heads sprung through it, one of them jingling car keys annoyingly at our mother.

"Good morning, Edward. Are you ready, mom?" Alice chirped.

Bella stopped bouncing, seeing me there, and stared at her feet, picking at her fingernails. Despite looking instantly uncomfortable, she was glowing and looked adorable in tight gray jeans and a cream sweater. I greatly regretted my choice to put food before hygiene.

"Were going into Seattle with Rose to look at dresses," mom explained to me. "Please eat something more than cereal. You look like hell, baby."

Awesome.

"I love you." She kissed me on the cheek, ruffled my already ridiculous arrangement of bedhead and followed the girls out the door. I threw the cereal box back into the cupboard and stomped back upstairs to take a shower.

The next few days followed suite. Family; warm. Food; abundant. Holly-jolly atmosphere; rampant. Wedding talk; non-stop. Bella and I; really, really fucking constrained.

There was still a buzz of electricity in the air whenever we were in the same vicinity. That made it harder to pretend she didn't exist. Bella, however, seemed to flourish at the task of ignoring me. She spoke excitedly with my family, hugging them, singing Christmas carols, and otherwise decimating me more and more every day.

I knew my family eyed me warily, concerned about the level of stress I was under in New York and the squandered fire that was barely fizzling inside me. I tried, for their sakes, to smile and laugh more, but it always came off forced. It didn't help my disposition the way I was always painstakingly aware of Bella. What she was wearing, where she was sitting, the words she was saying...even how mouth-wateringly sweet she smelled. Being home was torture. It felt wrong and devoid of the comfort it should have offered. Which only pissed me off more because it was _my_ motherfucking home. It was _my _family. Not hers.

And I was a jackass for even thinking of it like that.

By the time Christmas Eve dinner came around, the tension between Bella and I was palpable. Mom sat us at opposite ends of the long dinner table with what she played off as a "logical arrangement", but I knew it was entirely calculated. No other Christmas Eve gathering had ever seen Bella and me farther than two feet away from one another the entire evening.

The gathering was an annual event, where my parents hosted a huge, delicious family dinner. Over the years, the table had expanded to include Bella, Charlie, Jasper and now Rosalie.

Forks clanked against plates, crystal goblets cheersed, and everyone ate and laughed merrily. I couldn't help but notice as dessert was winding down and the conversations became more localized, that I was the odd man out. My brother and sister were in their own little, love-smitten world with their partners, my father was showering compliments on my mother for yet another beautiful holiday gathering, and Charlie was drilling his daughter about life in Arizona.

I sat pushing a piece of tiramisu around my plate with my fork.

"Well, Bells, maybe next year you can invite this new boyfriend of yours so we can all meet him, hmm?" Charlie chided, literally poking at Bella's side with his finger. My fork clanged loudly onto my plate. Everyone turned to look at me. I gawked at Bella. She was looking at her lap and biting her lower lip ferociously.

"Sorry," I muttered. "The dessert was really good, mom."

She smiled at me but her eyes were troubled. I should have stayed in New York.

Slowly the conversations picked back up and everyone looked away.

"Dad, it's not...it's not like...ya know...that," Bella stammered. "He isn't my boyfriend really." She meant to convince Charlie that it wasn't a serious relationship. I was left wondering exactly what the fuck it _was _like.

I threw my chair back, muttering apologies as it crashed behind me. I dropped my napkin on my plate and stormed out of the dining room. I slammed the front door loudly behind me.

It was pouring rain and fucking freezing outside, but it was better than the stifling, "merry" heat inside. I paced back and forth in front of the porch, soaked to the bone within minutes. My mind swam with every tangible emotion imaginable. I was furious. I was repentant. I was guilty and devastated. I felt frustrated and helpless. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. I wanted to run back in there and apologise profusely to my mother for being such a prick after she went through so much effort to make the day perfect. I didn't deserve them. Any of them.

I was lost inside my own internal rage, dripping wet and muttering under my breath. I made my way down the front walk and was weaving distractedly in and out of the cars in the driveway. I kicked the huge tire of Emmett's Jeep with all my might. My foot slipped off the slick tire and my shin crashed into the wheel well. It fucking hurt like hell. I yelped and jumped around on one foot swearing profusely. I slammed the heel of my palm into the side of the unimposing Jeep in retaliation.

"Don't you think you are a bit old for such a dramatic temper tantrum?"

I spun around, rain flinging off the soaked strands of my hair and the collar of my shirt. Bella was standing at the top of the porch steps, safely undercover, a blue towel draped over her arm. Her other hand was on her hip and her eyebrow was raised indignantly at my display. I glowered at her.

"You're going to catch pneumonia and a die and then Esme will never forgive herself for insisting that you come home for Christmas. Don't you think you've been enough of a dick for one day?" I couldn't argue with that logic. Still, I glared at her. She rolled her eyes at me.

She turned and walked away. The porch wrapped around the entire front of the house and then extended down the west side, coming just feet from meeting up with the back deck. Bella made her way around the corner and continued along the planked floor, protected from the downpour that I was standing victim to in the middle of the driveway.

I stomped up the steps and went to go find her – and the towel. She was sitting at the very end of the long, narrow porch in one of the many overstuffed couches that created an outdoor living space at the back of the house. Her knees were tucked up at her chest and she was resting her cheek on them, watching my approach with a blank look on her face.

I stood stupidly in front of her, my hands in the pockets of my soggy jeans, rain dripping in steady streams down my face and neck, and pooling at my feet. I had no idea what to say. I loved her. I hated her. She seemed indifferent about me. Was everything a mistake? Had it all finally caught up to us the way I so arrogantly used to pride myself that it hadn't?

She reached beside her and scooped up the towel, throwing it at my head.

"Thanks," I muttered, drying off my hair.

She held up something black, which at further inspection was a Columbia University hoodie I brought with me. She had obviously dug around in my duffle bag for it. The thought didn't annoy me at all, even though it seemed like it should have.

I stripped out of the heavy polo I was wearing and threw it on the floor at my feet, drying off a bit more before I pulled on the dry hoodie, warm from being held so close to Bella. I poked my head through the neck hole and yanked the hoodie down, meeting Bella's wild eyes and poor, ravaged lip as she watched. She looked away quickly, but not before I realised I still had _that _kind of effect on her. I couldn't help myself.

After being so angry, and uncharacteristically sullen over the last few days, and after the torrential rain soaking me to my core, and the excruciating pain lingering in my leg…I found Bella's obviously flustered state to be incredibly comical. I laughed out loud at her, tossing the towel back, all wet and dirty and smelling like me.

She deflected it, sending it over to join my discarded shirt on the ground at my feet. "Shut up," she snapped at me. I laughed harder.

I kicked off my dress shoes and sat next to Bella to pull my sopping wet socks from my feet.

"You should just go inside, Edward, you're going to freeze." Bella eyed my cold, red, bare feet suspiciously.

"I don't think I'm ready to go back in there just yet," I answered truthfully, balancing my elbows on my knees and cradling my head in my hands. I stared at the lines in the floorboards.

"Why? Are there more defenceless, inanimate objects you'd like to kick the shit out of first?"

I snorted.

"Besides, I'm the reason you ran out of the room, and I'm out here now, so... Feel free to go back in." That cut right to the chase.

I turned my head to look at her. She chomped on her lip nervously.

"What's his name," I asked the only thing on my mind. Honest. Obviously vulnerable to her answer.

"No name, Edward, there's no one." She was lying. I wasn't that dense. She knew that.

I glared at her.

"We just went on a few dates, Edward," she mumbled, looking away from me and shaking her head. Something hot and sharp ricocheted through me, and it took every ounce of restraint to not kick something else.

"It's obviously serious enough that you mentioned him to your dad," I growled. I was a masochist. I needed to just shut the fuck up and walk away. I was also a hypocrite, though I had no intention of confessing that to Bella.

"No," she shouted, almost laughing at the idea. "God, not a chance. I don't tell Charlie, ya know...things...like that." Hot, sharp, splinters, rage, me. I sat up and rubbed my freezing cold hands together roughly just to generate some friction and hopefully sate my desire to punch the coffee table or some shit. _Things like that! Mother fucker, shit, fuck, damn... _There was nothing but profanity and violence flashing through my mind.

Much to my horror, Bella kept blabbering just to fill the tense silence.

"It was nothing. Dad just called my apartment one morning and he answered. Otherwise, I would have never told him anything. Believe me, it's nothing worth telling..." She trailed off, eyeing my shaking hands cautiously, realising too late that she was making it so much worse.

_Morning!_

"Awesome," I mumbled like a petulant toddler and stood up, booting my shoes across the porch one by one.

"Oh give me a fucking break, Edward," she was now screaming at me. Bella almost never lost her shit, but when she did, she committed to it thoroughly. I knew I was dead. She marched over to where I stood and looked me right in the eye. I flinched from the rage I saw boiling under the surface of her artfully constructed facade as it crumbled around her.

"Do you have any goddamn idea how many vulgar, fucking classless jokes your brother has made about your 'big city sex life'," she continued screaming at me, her little fingers using air quotes. It almost made me want to laugh at her. Almost.

I also had the urge to storm back into the house and pummel the snot out of my idiotic, fucking brother.

"And I just fucking sit there like imbecile taking it all in because you aren't there to clarify, as if you could, and I can't tell him to shut the fuck up. I can't scream at him and demand the name of the fucking dirty, city whores you've allowed into your bed so that I can hunt them down and gouge their disgusting eyes out. And I can't call you up and tell you how wretched and inconsequential I feel. How utterly trivial and obsolete. Like I've just been replaced…no, worse than replaced…abandoned!

"And I certainly can't tell anyone that the depraved acts Emmett describes doesn't sound anything like the tender, adoring boy who used to make love to me almost daily for years on end. I can't say any of that. So I just shut the fuck up and absorb it. But I can feel it."

Tears were pouring down her cheeks by the end of her rant and her nostrils were flaring with suppressed rage and emotion. I wanted to reach out and pull her to me. Yet, another part of me , the weaker part, just wanted to walk away, because that would be much, much easier. I did nothing. I just stood there like an idiot as she bawled into her palms, her little body shuddering from the sobs.

I raked my fingers through my hair and rubbed my jaw furiously, wounded in so many different capacities.

"If nothing else, Edward, we were supposed to stay friends." Bella's quiet voice seeped out in between sobs, through the muffle of her palms. "But there just isn't room for me in your fancy, new life."

I couldn't stay silent about that. The idea was absurd.

"How can you even say that Bella? You _are_ my life. You always have been. I shouldn't need to tell you that."

"Then how did we get here?" she cried.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. What more was there to say?

"I miss you," she whimpered, dropping her hands and looking up at me. Her eyes were rimmed in red and already puffy, tears streaked her cheeks, and her lower lip trembled as she fought back more tears. "I miss you so much, Edward."

The urge to comfort her superseded everything else in that moment and I took a step forward, my bare feet numb against the cold floor, and wrapped my arms around her. She buried her face in my chest and cried. I held her. Tight. I tried to breathe through my own pain but I couldn't help the tears that seeped out from the corners of my closed eyelids. A tear fell from my chin and slid down the shell of Bella's ear. She gasped and pulled back to look at me.

"Oh, Edward," she breathed. Her little fingertips brushed away my tears, before she laced her arms around my neck. My arms tightened around her and her body melted into mine. A perfect fit.

Love and regret flooded to the surface, stinging and pricking at my every fibre as I held my best friend, shuddering with tears and pain that I knew I shouldered half the blame for. I kissed the top of her head, her hair damp with my own tears. She looked up at me, innocent and vulnerable, begging me to be worthy of her trust once again. I hated myself for ever faltering in the first place. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt Bella.

I wove my fingers into her hair, cradling her little head in my palms. It reminded me of the hundreds of times I had held her in a similar fashion while making love. I always handled her tenderly and with adoration. I wanted that again. Desperately.

Operating impetuously, I bent down to kiss her. I just had to. I had resisted too many times in the past. Somehow knowing it would either make or break us.

My lips met hers softly and cautiously. I had no idea how she was going to receive my unbidden actions, but her delicious taste swam through me welcomingly. I . .felt warm and peaceful, despite being barefoot in twenty degree weather and in the midst of the most heated argument of my life. There was no more fight left in me. I loved her. End of story.

The kiss deepened quickly, morphing from hesitant to urgent as we tried with our actions to apologise and comfort the wounds we had inflicted over the previous few years. We moved over to the couch. I laid her down against the plush cushions, her head in my hands and her body wrapped around mine. We traced tender, emotional kisses everywhere we could reach. Her fingers wound into my hair but didn't pull. I groaned into her shoulder but didn't nip. This was penitence – a soft and amorous atonement.

I moved one hand from her head to her leg, running it up the length and under her skirt. She had on thick tights, which I both appreciated because they were keeping her warm and cursed because they were in between me and the silky skin I craved to feel under my hand. Her hands were under my hoodie, running along my bare stomach and back, pulling me to her.

When she reached for the button of my dress pants, alarms started blaring in my head. I had been burned so badly by the drunken sex romp in my car two years before. I stilled her hands and pulled out of the kiss. I shook my head "no" at her and she scowled. So fucking adorable.

I could think of a hundred and one fucking reasons why it would be a bad idea to make love to Bella on the couch, on my parent's porch, in the freezing rain, at midnight on Christmas when we had hardly spoken in two years. Not the least of which was the fact that Charlie's police cruiser was still in the driveway.

But it only took one quiet, beautiful reason to allow me to surrender. Bella.

"Please," she whispered, her face nuzzled into my neck, her arms warm around my waist underneath the hoodie. "Please, please..."

It reminded me of the first time Bella whispered those words to me in the exact same position. My eyes flooded and I cradled her below me. We had been through so much together. I pulled back and looked into her big, brown eyes. So sincere and filling with her own emotions.

Answering her pleas with actions, I pressed my lips against hers affectionately, wanting to kiss her slowly and properly, despite the location and the risk. My tears finally pushed past the brim of my eyelids and spilled onto her cheeks below. She whimpered and blinked and her own stream dripped down her temples and into my hands where they held her precious, little head in my capable palms. I kissed her gently and whispered a hundred promises in her ear as I slowly freed us from the articles of clothing standing in our way. I was going to make love to Bella the right way, atone for every error we each made that derailed our friendship.

I told her that she was the most remarkable person I had ever known, and that her strength and fortitude awed me daily. I promised to honour her unwavering trust in me by loving her honestly, passionately and faithfully. By never again doubting or jeopardizing the foundation that our love was built on; our friendship. I promised to be everything to her. Her stability, her strength, her comfort and her companion, her lover and her guardian. Because she was all of those things to me – and more.

I vowed to always touch her with a gentle hand and speak to her with a tender tongue. To demonstrate everyday the priority that our friendship was in my life. I told her that I would fight for us and everything we stood for as long as I lived. That she amazed me, and that the fact that she chose me, wanted _me _, made me feel like I had truly been blessed. That I loved her.

And with my tears pouring over her face and hers into my hands, I worshipped her with my words and my body, making slow, sweet love to her. I cradled her head in my hands, and in between moans and sighs and laboured, emotional breaths, I gave myself to her more than I had the first time. This time I gave her my soul.

The next morning I came bounding down the back stairwell and into the kitchen, a huge dopey smile on my face. Charlie had passed out on the couch, drunk from both the turkey and the Goose, so Bella slept wrapped up tight in my arms in my bed after we snuck back into the house around three am. I wanted to wake up every morning that way. It was incredible.

My mom was busy ladling pancake batter onto the skillet when I jumped off the bottom step and a planted a big, sloppy kiss on her cheek. "Merry Christmas," I beamed at her.

It took her a good minute to recover from the drastic alteration in my mood, and I panicked for a moment, wondering if it would be to blindingly fucking obvious that I had A) reconciled with my lifelong best friend and lover the night before, and B) had the greatest, most significant sex of my life - on the front porch of her house.

She just shook her head and smiled at me, shrugging off the mood swings, except to announce that it seemed I was in an exceptionally better mood than the last time she saw me. I cringed at both the memory of what a jerk I was and the fact that the reason I was such a changed man still lay curled up in my bed donning a Columbia University hoodie that was far too big on her. I shrugged.

"Merry Christmas to you too, baby," she sang to me as she mussed up my hair. I rolled my eyes at the ancient gesture. I swore half the reason my hair was in a perpetual state of uncontrollable chaos was the fact that everyone had been doing that to me my whole life. I just winked at her and stole a piece of bacon off the platter behind her.

"I take it Bella helped?" she asked innocently enough, her back to me as she continued making Christmas morning breakfast for everyone. My blood ran cold. My thoughts stammered momentarily until I realised she just figured that Bella and I had always been so close, and if something was upsetting me, discussing it with Bella would help. She assumed Bella could be the cooling salve to all my wounds just by being there for me when I deserved it the least. She had no idea how accurate she was.

I nodded.

After breakfast, the entire family gathered around the front room to exchange gifts, including Charlie and Bella, Jasper, and Emmett and Rosalie who had also stayed the night instead of driving back to the apartment they shared in the city. The atmosphere was buoyant, and cheerful Christmas tunes wafted through the air. Our bellies were full and our hearts were light. I sat on the couch next to the fire watching my baby sister shriek with delight at the pearl drop Tiffany necklace Jasper had given her. I had to hand it to him, the clown knew how to please my sister.

Bella crawled up onto the couch next to me, still in my hoodie and a borrowed pair of boxer shorts. She looked adorable. She looked like sex. I snickered inwardly at my family's naïveté. She curled up against me, her head on my chest and her hands in my lap. I draped my arm over her, sighing happily. Until my heart stuttered and I cursed aloud.

"What?" Bella looked up at me, her cute little face wrinkled up in panic.

"I didn't get you anything," I whispered, combing my fingers through her hair. She smiled up at me, giggling.

"It's okay. I didn't get you anything either."

The faithful, satisfied look we swapped said more than our words.

We had already given each other everything.

* * *

*sobs*

Right?

These two will be the death of me.

It is literally nothing but rainbows and romps in the flowery field from here on out.

Up next...lemons, love, and maybe a New Year's Eve smooch or 2,583.

Hearts, Air

~xox~


	7. Hearts, Hamburgers and Milkshakes

Oh hi there...

THANK YOU so much for all the lovely reviews! I read every word of all of them and worship them, you have no idea!

Thank you!

Lulu_M5 aka Monika is back-beta'ing this story now. Worship her...I do.

* * *

For the first time in years, I was actually looking forward to something…scratch that. To fucking everything. The girls had spent the entire day before in the city shopping, scooping up after-Christmas sales and buying new dresses the festivities. It was New Year's Eve and we were all going over to one of my dad's colleague's house from the hospital for a black-tie charity event.

While the idea of something so formal was normally annoying at best, the idea of being out with Bella on my arm all night sent ripples of excitement through my body every time I thought about it.

We still hadn't formally sat everyone down to say, "Oh hey, by the way, we're in love, much more than just friends, and have mind-blowing sex…" – hell, we hadn't sat down and said any of that out loud to each other yet. But we were increasingly less discreet with our affection. They had to notice. They just weren't saying anything...to us.

Bella and I had always said the words "I love you" to one another, so there was never a need for that big, scary, fucking vulnerable putting-yourself-out-there-so-you-can-get-crushed moment. Instead, we just meant much more than we ever had every other time we said it. Our families weren't idiots, I was sure that they knew something was different between us. If not before, it was blindingly obvious after Christmas. But no one said anything, and we didn't feel the need to add the pressure to our fragile balance just yet. And the thrill of sneaking sex in the middle of the night when no one was looking was really fucking hot.

Grumbling under my breath, I beat my fist a couple of times on the door to my parent's room, my tie crumpled in my hands. My dad opened the door and smirked at me, backing away to finish doing up his cuff-links. I draped the tie over my neck and glowered in the mirror that hung by their bed. Somewhere behind me my dad chuckled and called for my mom to come out of the bathroom and help her inept son tie a tie.

More glowering.

Mom came up behind me in the mirror in a long red dress. Her hair was in soft, finger-waves and she looked like an early twentieth century movie star. She smiled at me, shaking her head and spun me around to face her. Her practiced fingers made quick work of the fabric. . She patted the tie twice to indicate she was all finished. She stood smiling at me, eyes twinkling in that motherly way. I smiled back.

"Mom, you look beautiful," I said. I had to tell her because she was stunning. On a selfish level, I thought that if that was the standard for the night, I was really fucking excited to see what Bella was going to be wearing.

"Aw, baby, thank you. You clean up just as nice as you father. What a handsome family I have." She kissed me on cheek, and then laughed and wiped off the red smudge she left behind.

Dad watched us with fondness. He nodded at my tie and joked that I was going to have to grow up sometime and learn how to tie my own tie.

Mom's eyes flashed with amusement and she turned to me. "Oh, do not let him fool you. I just finished tying his tie right before you came in."

Dad made a mock-look of being affronted. "Traitor," he teased and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her neck.

"Well, that's my cue." I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, mom," I called over my shoulder, closing the door behind me just in time to hear more squeals coming from the other side. It was sweet. To be that in love after all that time was admirable. I wanted that.

Emmett and Rosalie were going to meet us at the function, and Jasper was coming to pick up Alice, who was still living at home, and then they were going to drive up together. He was going to pick Bella up from Charlie's so she too could ride with us.

Thirty minutes later, Allie was shouting from downstairs that everyone was ready to go. I heard mom and dad pass my room and make their way down the stairs as I grabbed the little turquoise box off my nightstand, shoved it in my pocket, and followed them. I was only half way down the stairs when I saw her.

Everyone stood in the foyer putting on jackets and chattering excitedly. Bella and my mom were commenting on the shoes they had bought the day before and how nicely they went with their dresses. I was surprised I was even registering words and sound because all I could focus on was Bella. I could barely see any of her, but I could already tell she was exceptional.

She had a black pea coat over her dress and part of her hair was pinned back in loose curls, while the rest cascaded down her back against the coat. I was glad her hair was long again, it was too beautiful to cut. Beneath the hem of her coat was a sliver of emerald green satin that billowed just above her knees. I traced my eyes over her long legs to where they were wrapped in a pair of strappy, golden heels. Something about the deep, dark, jewel tone of the dress offset the creaminess of Bella's skin magically. I wanted it to be my tongue drawing lines up and down those legs.

Fuck. I was screwed. I was reacting to the sight of her already, and I hadn't even seen anything but two inches of dress, leg, and the back of her head.

She turned slowly toward me, following my mom's gaze over her shoulder. Mom smirked at me, clearly knowing I was struggling to keep my shit together in front of everyone. _Fucking moms, they always know everything. _

A warm smile stretched across Bella's face so wide I thought it had to hurt. Ignorant of the eyes bouncing back and forth between us, I studied the depths of Bella's for what could have been hours. I mouthed the word "wow" to her and she blushed. With much effort, I managed to climb the rest of the way down the stairs, holding firmly to the railing to keep myself from both caving from my wobbly legs, and also to keep from throwing Bella over my shoulder like a caveman and running her up to my bedroom to see the rest of that green dress…in a crumpled heap on my floor.

"Well, okay, I think we are all ready to go then," Dad said, an odd tone to his voice that I didn't have the wherewithal to dedicate to unravelling the reason. I just kissed Bella on the cheek and guided her with a hand at her shoulder out the door.

As we were curled up in the back seat of Dad's SUV on the way to the function, Bella leaned over and laced her little fingers into my hair, effectively turning me toward her. I knew my eyes were afire with more emotion and sensation than I thought my body could handle all at once. Without any more warning, she reached up and wrapped her soft lips around mine so gently it almost didn't happen, then leaned across my chest to whisper in my ear.

"You look pretty 'wow' too, by the way." She slid her fingers in between the buttons of my jacket and tugged at my skinny tie. Then she straightened up and sat back on her side of the car, beaming over at me. She looked so genuinely happy, from the inside, that it was glowing through her. It made my heart soar at how radiant she was. She was going to be the most captivating woman in the room. I had no doubt. And she was mine.

I was going to be the luckiest asshole in the room. I was entirely comfortable with that.

Dad drove up to the home, which was more like a French chateau than a house, and parked along the circular driveway by the fountain. We made our way into the event. Mom and Dad greeted everyone and made a few brief introductions to us kids, and then they were off in their own world of schmoozing and chatting – leaving us free to roam at will.

The inside of the mansion was spectacular. There was a five-piece orchestra playing soft, classical music, and a dance floor in the center of the grand ballroom that the party was being held in. I had no idea what the person did at the hospital, but apparently he invented modern medicine or some shit, because the place was unbelievable.

The lighting was warm and subdued as waiters wove in between the party-goers, offering up platters of tiny, ostentatious finger-foods and champagne. The kids all stuck together, drinking and entertaining each other with our own lively commentary on of some of the more extravagant party patrons.

We were laughing so much my sides actually ached. It felt good - I needed it more than I realised. Eventually, the food stopped circulating but the champagne came quicker. The lights were all dimmed down except for an elaborate crystal chandelier that hung above the dance floor and provided a subtle glow, painting the dance floor in a sepia-toned, romantic dancing atmosphere.

It was still two hours until midnight, my parents were lost in the masses no where to be found, and the conversation amongst ourselves was starting to slow down and shift to more private murmurings in between swigs of our drinks. Jasper eventually took Allie out to the dance floor, much to her delight, and Emmett and Rose bickered about whether or not they should have a similar troupe or a regular DJ at their wedding.

I laced my fingers into Bella's, leaned into her - pretty sure at least someone in the room that knew me could see me from wherever the hell they were all hiding, but not really finding it that big of a deal - and I slid my free hand beneath the thick blanket of her hair and asked her to come with me. Before turning to walk away I placed a soft, chaste kiss on her neck. With my arm draped across her shoulders, I lead her across the dance floor, through the bustling kitchen, and out onto the back deck. The huge double doors that lead from the house to the veranda were open, and there were people laughing and smoking outside. The beams above the veranda were lined with blazing patio heaters, keeping everyone warm and denying the cold air entrance into the house.

Our champagne glasses in hand, we tucked ourselves away from the group and off to the side near a spiral, stone staircase that lead to the grounds below. Bella settled herself against me. I set our drinks on the stone ledge, so I could more easily wrap the sides of my suite jacket around her, despite the heater just above our heads that was warming us almost as much as our contact.

We stood, leaning against the stone railing for some time, content to just be enjoying the night in one another's arms. I dipped my head down, nudging her with kisses against her temples and forehead until she looked up at me. She was so beautiful it stalled my heart for a moment.

Her dress had graciously lived up to my previous assessment. It had thick straps and the neckline dipped into deep, matching V's down both the front and the back. The point of the front V sat low down her middle, beneath her breasts, almost to her navel, the sides draped delicately across her soft flesh. The back V dipped down equally low, just hinting at the beginning of the arch that lead to her cute, little ass, dimples on either side. The back V had a layer of lace stretched across it in the exact shade of emerald as the satin.

The essence of the dress was undeniably sexy, yet everything draped and hung in a way that it was sophisticated and classy. I couldn't drink in the image of her in it enough if I had a lifetime to stand to the side and silently observe her. Yet by some miracle, I was far luckier than that. I slid my hands over each texture up and down her back and sides. Smooth satin, silken skin, and rough lace. My fingers twisted in the soft, sleek curls as they lapped at her shoulder blades and the tips of my fingers while I held her against me.

Our lips met. Our happiness ignited through us and spread into the other. Sparks and waves of heat washed over us as we opened and closed our lips in unison. Our tongues played and my hands roamed. Bella sighed and moaned softly into my mouth. I felt the vibrations in my toes. Her hands slid around my sides and under my jacket, clutching the back of my shirt in her little fists.

_Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere ever again, baby. You don't have to hold on to me so tight. I promise. _Not that I minded.

I told her everything I was thinking with my kiss, not wanting to end it just yet. Though my insides were anxious and my fingers were beginning to tremble from something other than the cold night. Besides, it was warm and cozy under the heaters. Slowly, I withdrew my tongue from Bella's mouth, washing it once over the curl of her lower lip, placing a few chaste pecks before pulling away completely.

Bella whimpered and clutched onto my shirt tighter, her eyes still closed. I chuckled softly at her and she slowly opened them. It looked like it required a lot of effort as she fought to uncross them and focus on me, her lids drooping heavily with want.

I cupped her face in my palms, kissed her again, unable to resist the beautiful temptation. "I have something for you," I whispered against her lips, drawing her lower lip into my mouth once more and sucking on it lightly.

I pulled back and looked at her. She had a dazed and lustful, glossy look to her. Her eyes were questioning, urging me to continue. I reached into my pocket and produced the little turquoise box. My hands were shaking and I had no fucking clue why. It wasn't like I was asking her to marry me.

I scoffed inwardly at myself and reached down with my free hand to bring hers up to the box. I uncurled her fingers and sat the box in her tiny, creamy white palm. She smiled widely at me, shaking her head in disbelief before taking the little box in her other hand. Her dainty little fingers pried it open and I reached in and pulled out the necklace that lay in a little pile in the basin.

It was a delicate platinum lariat with two hearts. The first open heart design had the chain feeding through it, secured from slipping back out by a solid heart-shaped locket. The locket had a very faint floral etching designed on the front, finished with a small, random smattering of diamonds. The whole thing was delicate and feminine and reminded me of Bella in those ways. But the significant part lay inside. The strong part, the part that was kept hidden from everyone. It was everything beautiful that mattered the most. And _that _was what really reminded me of Bella.

I popped open the locket while she stared, mouth agape at the delicate trinket in my hands. I turned it around to show her the pictures. They were small but clearly visible. On the left was an ancient picture of our mothers sitting on a park bench next to each other, sticky faced toddlers holding ice cream on their laps. Everyone smiled widely at the camera.

The second picture was taken the night of our Senior Prom. Alice and Jasper had gone with us as juniors, and Emmett and Rosalie came home for a big family dinner before the four of us took off to the dance. Essentially we all went as a group, but really, it was Alice and Jasper, and Bella and I. Just before we took off in our separate cars we all huddled around a tripod on the front porch of my parents house, Charlie included, and snapped a bunch of pictures.

The excitement in the air meant that no one was looking at the camera at the same time and that we were all laughing and leaning into one another. They were candid, natural and beautiful - an amazing series of pictures. One of them was placed in the right side of Bella's locket. In it I had my arms around her and was whispering god-knows-what in her ear while she smiled brightly.

Bella's lower lip, the one I had just been lavishing on, began to tremble as she traced her finger across the pictures. Tears welled in her eyes, and I smiled admiringly at her, just taking in her raw and honest reaction to the old pictures, knowing she loved the gift.

"Edward," she whispered through a broken and hitched voice after many silent minutes. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything, Bella. I just never want to forget where we came from and what's important ever again. I won't lose you again. I can't...it would destroy me."

She looked up from the locket, her eyes drowning in emotion.

"I love you, Bella. So much it scares me."

That was her undoing.

One…slow…blink.

That was all it took to break the seal around the rim of her eyelids. Within seconds, her cheeks were covered in tears. I wiped them away with my fingertips and bent down to kiss away any I had left behind. Fresh tears ran down and met my lips, sweet and salty. I kissed those ones away as well, cradling her face in my palms, one hand still holding onto the locket. Her little body was trembling from all her tears, but I knew they were happy tears. Content and perfect tears.

I "shushed" and rocked her in my arms until she was able to calm down enough to look up at me. I just smiled at her, slow and easy. She was so much more than just my best friend. I brushed my lips against hers, still tasting the salt from her emotions, and slowly, artfully, demonstrated how much I loved her.

"Edward," Bella whispered in between kisses and coming up for air.

I placed a final peck at the corner of her mouth and looked at her. "Yes?"

"I have always loved you," she whispered, her voice cracking. More tears were imminent. "I can't think of a time that I didn't love you. I loved you as kid, when you were like my quiet partner in crime. And later as my best friend, you were always someone I could talk to. You were the only one I ever wanted to talk to – that I trusted enough to share everything of myself with and not feel like I had to hide anything. I have always been able to just be me, for better or for worse. And that is worth so much more than how simple it sounds.

"I loved you the night you first made love to me and even more intensely every time after." She drew a quivering breath in, taking a moment to recompose herself so I would be able to understand the words she was trying to say through the beautiful, soft sobs. I granted her the time she needed and said nothing. I just brushed back the fallen tears and kissed her temples softly…waiting.

"I loved you, Edward, when we said good-bye and when we said nothing at all. _Especially_ when we said nothing. Every second that we spent unsure of ourselves I think I spent falling in love with you even more, whether I knew it or not. It just proved to me how integral you are to me and how much I need you. And now… now I don't think its possible to be more in love with you than I am at this moment. You are _everything _to me. Everything. Do you have any idea the power behind that? I need you…always. I wish there was something more adequate that I could say besides 'I love you' because that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of it. But I do. I love you, Edward."

The words carried a whole new weight and a new responsibility as they left her lips and wrapped themselves around my heart, weaving so deep and intricately around my every fibre that they could never be cut away without leaving me in ruins. She left me speechless. It was my turn to stand with my mouth agape. My meagre words felt inadequate after her inspiring profession.

So I simply placed my hand on her shoulder and guided her around gently, shifting her hair to one side, so I could carefully place the necklace on her. She turned back, beaming up at me. The locket looked like it had always been a part of her, nestled against her, the pictures enclosed in the delicate heart resting just above the swell of her breasts.

Her fingers laced into my hair and I bent down to kiss her with everything I had. After her profound words, I felt so connected to her. I trailed one hand down her neck, the backs of my fingers gliding softly along the smooth satin, over her shoulder and down the middle of her front to the hem of the dress. I slid my tongue in between her lips and wrapped it around hers, my fingers toyed at the hem of her dress and with the smooth, satiny skin of her bare thighs underneath.

I figured I was just teasing her at that point, and her needy little mewling whimpers confirmed it. But it was nice to shift the mood from something so heavy to something a bit…different.

Eventually we could hear people gathering and a buzz building, so we begrudgingly tore ourselves away from one another and made our way inside to the dance floor. There was a large projection screen showing a live feed of Time Square and the countdown to the New Year. We were in the very back of the crowd by a grand stairwell.

I leaned back against the railings and wrapped my arms around Bella, pulling her against me. She looked back over her shoulder at me, her eyes radiant and questioning. I closed my eyes and placed a tiny kiss at the tip of her nose. She smiled and turned back around to watch as the ball dropped. I brushed her hair off her shoulder and kissed my way from there up her neck until I came to her ear, my arms still holding her tight.

"I want to show you New York, sometime, Bella. I really think you'd like it," I whispered, placing tender kisses along the edge of her ear and looking up to watch the pandemonium on the screen over her shoulder.

"Yes, please," she agreed, nodding faintly and tilting her head to the side to encourage more kisses. I willingly obliged. Her delicate hands slid over the tops of mine where they were pressed against her stomach, weaving her fingers in between mine.

The countdown clock reached ten seconds, and the entire room started shouting the numbers excitedly as we neared our new year. I whispered each number in her ear, followed by a kiss. By the time we reached one, she was nearly limp in my arms, her little head lolled over to one side, her eyes closed and her chest heaving. The room erupted and her eyes darted open, looking as if she had completely forgotten where she was and what she doing. I smiled - really fucking smug about that.

"Happy New Year, Bella," I whispered into her ear. She spun around to face me, my arms staying around her so my hands rest right at the point of the V on her back.

"Happy New Year, Edward," she smiled up at me, her eyes saying so much more than those four simple words. It was going to be a great year. I could feel it.

The lights had come on in the room while glitter-confetti dropped and everyone applauded. I stretched my hands out, my long fingers dancing on the brilliant, green satin salaciously low, and I bent down and kissed her passionately. I pulled with my fingers tangled in the satin below the V, digging into her ass and anchoring her against me firmly.

After the excitement wound down and the lights dimmed again, the jazz band roared back to life. I lead Bella out onto the dance floor, much to her horror. But my mother, in her infinite wisdom, taught both Emmett and I not only how to cook, appreciate fine poetry, and play the piano, but also how to ballroom dance. She was determined to make us proper gentleman.

I wasn't sure how much of it stuck to Emmett, but I was more than capable of leading Bella around the dance floor. She claimed to hate dancing, but whenever _I_ held her in my arms, whatever the occasion, she always had an excellent time. That night was no exception.

When the band slowed down and a soft trumpet song filled the room, Bella, whose hand rest in mine, turned and tugged me toward the edge of the dance floor, looking for an escape. I was unrelenting. I pulled her back to me and forced her to stand directly in front of me. I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her, right in the middle of the dance floor, knowing my entire family was somewhere within eyesight and not caring. I allowed our actions to speak louder than our words…it was a skill that we had perfected over the years. I trailed my hands down her smooth curves, revelling in the rich texture of her satin dress, and continued to kiss her. Slow. Sensuous. Adoring.

When I pulled back and looked down out her, my own eyes twinkling with excitement, she was blushing and she looked brilliant and alive. I loved her so much it threatened to crush me under the weight. I wrapped my arms around her back and held her against me, moving her gently to the cool, brassy sound of the trumpet. She lay her arms around my neck, threading her little fingers into my hair, and rest her head against my chest. Her fingertips were playing with my shirt collar and in my hair. My eyes were closed, relishing the slow, gentle sway of our bodies to the song.

We danced the rest of the night, not being bashful nor chaste with our affection. When the last song was played and the lights brightened, we left the dance floor hand in hand.

We found Emmett leaning against a wall at the front of the room with a beer in his hand. He looked tired and annoyed, his head pressed back against the wall, swirling the beer around in the bottle.

"What's up with you?" I asked as we approached him. He nodded over to where the band was packing up. Rosalie stood in the middle of their stage with her black book out and her pen in her hand. Clearly she was cross-checking available dates with the band manager. We laughed and Emmett rolled his eyes.

After locating everyone else amidst the revelry, we hugged, kissed, and wished a happy New Year's to all those we met, and then excused ourselves to go wait outside, hot and sweaty from all the dancing. Dad eyed me suspiciously with an odd smirk as I lead Bella through the throngs of people and out the door. We gulped back the fresh air, needing it after the weight of the evening.

We laughed and joked with each other, waiting for everyone else to make their way outside so we could leave. We were not drunk, but it almost felt that way because we were so giddy. Many of the party-goers nodded and thanked us for some reason as they sashayed past us leaving the party. Probably because we were at the exit like we were either event security or the hosts seeing their guests out. It only made us laugh harder.

Tears were forming in my eyes as Mom and Dad made their way onto the porch. They peered at us in amusement – Bella bent over in stitches, clutching her sides and me leaning against the railing sighing and trying to catch my breath after laughing so forcefully. They probably _did _think we were drunk.

"Everything okay out here?" Mom asked, smiling along with us.

"Perfect, everything is perfect," I answered through a smile, winking at my mother as she grinned back at me.

Moments later, Emmett and Rosalie emerged. Emmett was grumbling about how much an extravagant band like that would cost. He nodded at us in acknowledgement and stomped down the stairs toward their car. Alice and Jasper were just behind them. Rose turned around, impervious to her fiancée's foul mood, and mouthed over her shoulder to Allie, "I already had them save the date," and winked and squealed silently.

"Rosalie!" Emmett shouted for her to hurry up, and we all erupted into even more laughter. We hugged and kissed Alice and Jasper good-bye as they left to go stay at his house…which really creeped me out, but I guess it was a pretty regular occurrence. I had to remind myself that she was almost twenty-one and could stay the night at her boyfriend's house if she wanted to. I still wanted to take the clown around back and give him a stern lecture first.

We piled back into the SUV and Bella and I cuddled against each other on the way back, her eyes drooping as the motion of the car lulled her to sleep. Mom and Dad were talking about what a great soiree it was and all the friends they got a chance to catch up with. I was watching Bella's peaceful little face as she slept against me. The gravel crunching under the tires in our driveway woke her up, and she straightened up, yawning and stretching and looking really fucking adorable.

I helped her out of the back seat but then held her back a moment as my parents made their way to the porch. Bella looked up at me quizzically and my parents turned around, a similar expression on their tired faces.

"I'm starving," I announced. Dad just rolled his eyes. Bella snorted and Mom looked perplexed.

"Let's go get something to eat," I nodded toward my old car at the end of the driveway, tugging at Bella's hand.

"Are you kidding me?" she wailed. "It's three a.m.!"

"Edward, baby, you aren't going to find anything open at this hour," mom reasoned.

Bella stared at me incredulous.

"There's got to be a fast food place open or something. I'm really hungry. I haven't eaten all day and pardon me if two scallops and a freaking puff pastry don't exactly qualify as dinner for me," I defended.

Bella just scoffed at me, shaking her head. Dad muttered something about suiting myself and lead my exhausted mother up the stairs and into the house to go to bed. I ran in and grabbed the keys to the car and sprang back down the porch steps. Bella just gawked at me.

"Ya know, New York has really spoiled you." She rolled her eyes and smirked at me, her arms crossed against her chest.

"Yup," I agreed, and we took off in search of food.

We had to drive three towns over, but we eventually found something open. Much to my stomach's delight, we sat at a twenty-four hour fast food joint scarffing back sloppy hamburgers and french fries in our black-tie attire.

Bella sat on the same side of the table as me. We were wrapped around each other, legs tangled and her head on my chest, drinking milkshakes and feeding each other fries. We snapped a bunch of pictures on our cell phone cameras and joked and kissed and talked until our hearts were content…literally. It was perhaps the best meal of my life.

* * *

*crowd goes aw*

I know, I know...that chappy was heavy on the mush and light on the lemons...my sincere apologies.

Chapter 8 is written and I shall post it tonight or tomorrow. And believe me when I say it more than makes up for the lack of lemons in this chapter...excited? I AM! lol

Here is a link (if you remove each space after the dots) to a necklace similar to the one Ed gave Bella, in case my description was confusing ;)

http:/www. tiffany. ca/Shopping/Item. aspx?fromGrid=1&sku=23154846&mcat=148204&cid=287465&search_params=s+5-p+1-c+287465-r+501323352-x+-n+6-ri+-ni+0-t+

Until we meet again...in the grass when no one is looking...

*sexy dramatic promising wink*

Air

~xox~


	8. Incapacitated

Sorry this is a day late... *glares at RL*

Ed is a little...needy...in the beginning of this chappy.

It is a bit short but the next one is long and meaty *snort* so it makes up for it, promise.

Love you guys and all your endearing reviews...you guys are better than SSward in a back alley.

(Okay, that might be a little over-generous, but you're a close second)

Air

* * *

I was so urgently fucking horny I thought I might explode from the pressure.

The ache and burn had been building slowly over the last seven months, and the closer I came to Washington the stronger it got. It was a pulsing fire raging low in my belly by the time my plane touched down. My legs felt wobbly as I exited the tiny airport, squinting into the bright August day.

My charter flight landed almost an hour ahead of schedule at the Port Angeles airport, so I texted my parents to let them know I was in early and that I would just take a cab from the airport. Everyone else was busy, and mom and dad were tied up at some hospital children's benefit all afternoon. I knew Bella had just landed hours before me and I didn't want to bother her, she was probably exhausted. Despite how desperately I needed to see her...or something like that. I told my mom it wasn't a big deal and that I would just meet everyone at home for a late dinner.

The rare Washington sun beat down on my shoulders nicely as I made my way into the house. Everything was quiet as the musty rays streaked through the windows and across the hardwood. I passed Bella's truck out front, but that didn't mean much, she could have been out with the girls or something. I hadn't seen her since the holidays and I felt every lost, lonely minute of the separation severely, cowering in a corner of my bedroom or bathroom satisfying myself when all I longed for was Bella's touch.

We did a much better job the second time around of keeping the lines of communication open. Lines that at times found us panting and groaning into receivers simultaneously. But it was all a poor substitution for the real thing and I was desperate to feel her skin against mine – to feel the buzz, the tingle, and the warm curling ripples of her body against mine that rocketed through me, lighting my toes and fingertips on fire. That was what I wanted. But as I called out into the echoing nothingness of my parents home I realised I was going to have to settle yet again. There was no way I was going to make it through dinner and into the late hours waiting for Bella to crawl into my bed and ease the ache inside me. I needed some release. I was as hard as a fucking steel pole and I wanted instant gratification. It didn't mean that I wouldn't happily take Bella later.

I poked my head through the doors of the kitchen on the off chance that someone was in there…and deaf. The room was empty. Just as I was retreating back through the door I caught a glimpse of her. Bella was outside worshiping the rare sunshine as it flooded the backyard.

And no one was home.

I think my fucking dick was doing back flips it was so ecstatic. I practically flew out the back door, down the mezzanine steps and launched myself into the grass and over to where she lay. Leave it to Bella to ignore the fifty thousand dollars in Brown Jordan outdoor furnishings and opt to lay an old comforter out on the grass instead. It was adorable.

She was lying on her stomach, her head resting in the crook of her folded arms. She was in a red sun dress with flip-flops discarded on the grass near the blanket, and an old tattered book beside her. Her hair was vibrant and glistening every tone of mahogany and red imaginable as the sun kissed her every inch with its warmth. It was exactly what I planned on doing.

Unfortunately for me and my dick, as I got closer I realised she was sound asleep, her long eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks. I literally sunk to my knees at her feet in disappointment. I scowled at her for another couple of minutes as she muttered and sighed in her sleep, torn by not wanting to rip my eyes away from her and needing to run upstairs to take care of my own shit.

But then she moaned in her sleep. My dick twitched and my eyes widened in awe. _Was she having a sex dream? _That was so fucking hot. I promptly lost my mind and my dick dictated everything after that.

I reached out to where her little feet were upturned in front of me and swept the tips of my fingers lightly from the bottom of her toes across her arches. Her toes wiggled. I smiled in excitement. Scooting closer, I trailed my fingertips up her calves and over the backs of her knees. Getting down on all fours, I leaned down and placed a hot, wet kiss on the back of one of her knees, one hand reached out and curled around her other calf. I licked the back of her knee, warm and wet, then sucked lightly at the sensitive divot, looking up to see what kind of reaction she was going to have. Her shoulders wiggled and she moaned louder than before, her eyelids fluttering faster. I crawled in between her legs and moved up closer. With one hand on each of her legs, I rubbed soft, slow circles with my thumbs into the backs of her knees. Her legs shuffled beneath me and I looked behind me to see her little toes squirming against one another. My dick was dying from the anticipation, but toying with Bella was too fun.

I slid my fingertips up the exposed skin of the backs of her thighs, stopping when I hit the hem of her summer dress. I trailed my fingers back down, she writhed under my touch, sighing louder and wriggling her head back and forth, eyes still fluttering. I made the trail several times before succumbing to my dicks frantic pleas to move along.

I bent over and kissed along the inside of one thigh, pushing her dress up higher to allow me more skin to play with. One hand braced me while the other one massaged her thigh. I slid that hand up higher, underneath her skirt and ghosted it over the exposed flesh of her little ass, sliding it down the side to her hip, where I gripped her a little more firmly. I knew my hair had to be tickling the sensitive skin in between her thighs and her ass as I kissed, sucked, licked and nipped the inside of her leg. I sat up on my heels, still gripping her hip firmly in my right hand, and slid my left palm down her leg to her knee and back up to her ass again. She wriggled and moaned, her shoulders heaving under her panting breaths. I practically growled with a pleased eagerness.

I gently pushed her left leg open more, and bent down to adore some kisses on the freshly exposed thigh. I could see the sliver of purple panty in between her legs and I reached up and swept a long, firm finger over it, from end to end. Her entire body shuddered and she moaned something that sounded both like a word and a plea but it was too desperate and breathy to be coherent. I smoothed both palms firmly over her thighs, which were now nicely spread apart for me, down her leg to where they met my knees, right between hers, and then back up again. As I glided them up the back of her thighs and over her ass cheeks she moaned my name and I nearly lost my shit, so happy to know that even when she dreamed of being touched, it was only my hands she wanted on her.

I sat up and slithered over the top of her, just hovering above her body, and placed my palm on the blanket beside the back of her head to brace myself. I bent down to whisper in her ear and as I did my dick rubbed against her ass. My jeans had never felt so confining as they did the as it clawed at the seams to get out and dive right into her little body without any warning. But I didn't figure that would be appropriate. _As if the last thirty minutes of profuse violation had been…_

I traced my tongue around the shell of her ear and sucked on her earlobe, breathing into her, lightly rubbing myself against her backside creating just enough friction to drive me insane with need. Her eyelids fluttered heavily and she writhed beneath me. I whispered her name repeatedly in between kisses and rubbing against her like I was a horny teenager again, urging her to wake up. She moaned and squirmed and sighed my name – and every time she did I became harder and more urgent.

Eventually, she drew in a shaky breath, and groaned, her eyes fighting with gravity to open. I leaned down in front of her and placed a soft, chaste kiss on the tip of her nose and then her chin, so she would open her eyes fully. She should at least be semi-conscious before I bury my dick inside her.

Her eyes shot open and I watched as dawning washed over her adorably sleepy and confused features. She wriggled beneath me, no doubt feeling the ache I had expertly created in her as she slept. I smiled at her, waggling my eyebrows suggestively, she smiled back, still half asleep. I decided half-asleep was good enough for me.

I nudged the inside of her thigh with my knee, asking her to open up wider for me. She looked momentarily reserved but then intrigue flashed beneath the foggy filters of her eyes and she shuffled her legs open wider. I smiled bigger at her. She closed her eyes again and waited for me.

I sat back on my heels, dragging my palms over her shoulders, down her spine and gently across her ass as I went. I trailed one hand down her thigh and to the dampened purple sliver. I pushed it aside with my thumb and swept up through her with my middle finger. I was right; I had definitely created a serious need in her. My dick throbbed with a mirroring need as my fingers worked in the moisture. I circled around her a few times, watching as her body relaxed under my familiar touch and her eyelids fluttered again – but this time she was awake. I slipped my finger into her, the backward angle allowed me to touch places inside Bella I had never touched before. She whimpered and moaned, my thumb brushing against the sensitive skin of her backside in rhythm with my finger. She writhed and pushed herself against my hand harder needing more contact. I leaned down and put my weight on my left elbow, behind her head, my body flush against hers, my hard-on pressing angrily against her ass, begging to be unleashed. I pushed her hair off her shoulder with my nose, the fingers of my other hand still moving inside her. I trailed hot, eager kisses across her shoulder and down her neck. I tugged at her earlobe with my teeth and she cried out.

As hot and urgent as everything was, there was something very romantic about knowing her body so well that I could make her cry out like that. It reminded me of how much I loved her. As I licked and sucked at the tender flesh of her neck and behind her ear, I noticed the thin chain that draped around her neck. I couldn't see the front of her, but I knew it was my locket. It felt amazing to know she wore a piece of me with her everyday.

I needed to be inside her, professing my undying love with every stroke. I slid my fingers from her, coated in her desire, she whimpered a string of complaints and wiggled beneath me. I knew I had brought her right to the brink. I quickly undid my jeans enough that I could graciously free the desperate beast inside. Still hovering over her, I kissed her shoulders, neck and the exposed piece of her back between the straps of her dress. I shoved aside the soaking wet piece of purple fabric and slowly pushed my way inside her. She was still so fucking tight I was always afraid that after such long periods of absence I was going to hurt her. She moaned and pushed herself back into me, driving me deeper, faster than I meant to go. It even caught me off guard and I muttered a few obscenities into her shoulder. My right hand reached down and gripped her hip to pull her roughly back into me, needing her to arch her back more so I could reach her better at the odd angle we were in. She wailed and I thought I even heard a couple cuss words of her own. She squirmed back into me, worming her head into the nook of the arm that was bearing all my weight.

"Oh god, Bella," I moaned into her ear, rocking slowly in and out of her, her body shuddering and quivering against mine. My arm was shaking and my toes were curled so tight they were going to start spasming. Just as I moaned her name, she cried out, clamping down forcefully. Her little hand shot out and she fisted her fingers into the blanket, picking it up and slamming her fist into the ground repeatedly as she screamed and came hard around me. I stretched my arm out, wrapped it over her fist, placing a lot more of my weight on her little body, and squeezed her fist in mine – I was right behind her.

"Isabella," I groaned her rarely used full name into her ear as I came. Sufficiently milked, I collapsed onto her, panting in her ear and on her neck, still holding her fisted hand underneath mine. As our breathing relaxed and we slowly stopped shuddering against one another, I smirked into her shoulder, thinking about how she was going to have a very messy walk from the yard to the house once she stood up. At least we were both sated for the time being. She squirmed beneath me, turning around to face me. I didn't have the energy to move yet, so all my weight was still sandwiching her between me and the ground. She rolled over and looked up at me, her eyes vibrant and dancing, and a coy smile on her lips.

I only had one eye open. I smirked back. "What?" I asked.

"That's quite the welcome," she purred, curling into me and placing a small kiss on my chin. I folded my arms around her, holding her tighter. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I still needed to get out of the incredibly compromising position in case anyone came home, and maybe put my dick away and zip my pants back up – but I couldn't find the will to care just yet.

"You should get used to it," I smiled at her and closed both of my eyes, wanting nothing more than to just fall asleep despite being exposed and crushing Bella.

Later that night, after dinner, we were all curled up downstairs in the media room watching movies. I was sprawled out on a couch with Bella tucked against me. It was late and I was barely paying attention to the movie, having just landed that afternoon and spending the entire night before packing. I was exhausted. I trailed my fingers over Bella's hip, back and forth in a steady, relaxing rhythm until my eyelids got too heavy for me to hold open any longer. I stopped my trails and rest my hand against her hip and nuzzled closer into her, revelling in her sweet, delicious scent and drifting off.

A few minutes later, somewhere in the deep and murky background of my consciousness, I heard mom giggling and telling Bella to just elbow me. Apparently I was snoring lightly in her ear. I was too tired to care, I let myself drift back off…floating away peacefully and content surrounded by everyone that I loved, finally relishing the radiant warmth of Bella's little body tucked into mine…right where it belonged. But not before hearing Bella tell my mom that she didn't mind my snoring.

"It's soft and sweet, very peaceful and relaxing…like a cat purring on your lap. It's a very comforting sound for me."

I floated away into a sweet oblivion with a smile on my face.

It was a week before Emmett and Rosalie's wedding. The next day, after spending all fucking afternoon in the tux shop with Rosalie barking orders at the mousy and easily-intimidated shop keeper, I was finally fitted for my tux and free to leave the formalwear hell. I felt bad for the poor little shop keeper, Rosalie wasn't mean, just…very assertive. I secretly prayed for Emmett's future.

It was the night of the big bachelor and bachelorette parties. I had no clue what the girls were off to do, but they all sat giggling and whispering to each other around the breakfast bar waiting for the limo to come get them. I leaned against the doorway eyeing them wearily, trying really fucking hard to resist the urge to go in there and make sure mom and Rosalie knew not to let Bella have tequila because it makes her sick every time, and that when she drinks her clumsiness is amplified and to watch her closely. I bit my tongue and took a swig of my beer instead.

A knock at the door signified the driver's arrival and the girls jumped down from the stools, giddy as shit, and ran past me and out the front door. Bella placed a kiss on my cheek before running by me. I was glowering after them when Rosalie slid slowly off her stool, straightened her stupid little sash that said "bride-to-be" and grabbed her purse. Only my dad was still in the room, busy making dinner for the guys, stirring a pot of something on the stove. Rosalie sauntered toward me with a cheeky smile on her face.

"You worry too much, Edward. We'll take good care of your girl." She pat the top of my head and ran off as Alice screamed for her from somewhere outside. More glowering after them.

Dad's back was to me but I could hear him chuckling under his breath and he continued to stir.

"What?" I spat, not really as annoyed as I sounded. I knew Bella was in good hands and that my family only ever had the best of intentions.

"Oh nothing," he snickered without looking back at me.

My parents were good like that. They never questioned us unless it was necessary and they left us to make our own decisions. They never had the urge to drill us on every detail of our lives like some parents. They trusted us and knew that when we were ready, we respected our family above everything else, and that we would share every detail of our lives with them.

_When we were ready._

And that was just it, Bella and I were not quite ready yet. We knew where we stood as long as the other person was concerned. But after everything that we had been through, our hold on our happiness just seemed too tenuous. We weren't quite ready to tinker with it just yet. We needed more time.

Emmett and the guys came piling in and I nearly spat my beer across the kitchen at what he was wearing. Jasper and some of his buddies had made him a tee shirt that said, "If found incapacitated please call this number," with Rosalie's actual cell phone number on the back. It was pretty brilliant. And if any drunken asshole _actually _called that number later, Emmett was going to be in so much shit. Brilliant.

Dad was serving up piles of pasta to everyone as Jasper had his head in the fridge tossing beers over his shoulder to Emmett, who was in turn distributing them to everyone. I wasn't exactly sure what little details our night entailed, but looking around at the train wreck of miscreants that were Emmett's friends, I was instantly nervous.

Emmett grabbed a barstool and started shovelling pasta into his mouth. Everyone thanked my dad and guzzled their beers.

"I figured we could all use something substantial in our stomachs before the chaos," dad muttered when I cocked an eyebrow at the bowl of spaghetti he handed me.

"Ahh…" I smiled and grabbed a fork.

"Nice sentiment, Carlisle," Jasper piped up, slurping up a noodle. "But greasy pasta sauce stains…ya know…when it comes back up."

I glowered at him, reconsidering my prior assessment of the guy my sister had chosen.

"Well…" dad sat on a barstool next to Emmett. "Maybe we can just taper it back one step before any of that, hmmm?"

I scoffed…that wasn't likely. Dad slapped Emmett on the back. The night was going to be mayhem.

Forty-five minutes later the sink was overflowing with dishes, beer bottles littered every surface of the kitchen and there was a large Hummer limo outside waiting for us. As we all exited out of the house and dad turned around to lock the door, I held back and waited for him.

"Any idea where we're headed first?" I asked, skeptical but knowing it was going to be a fun night out, and that my brother deserved it.

"Nope," dad widened his eyes in mock-horror, popping his lips on the "p" and shoving me forward down the stairs.

It wasn't like I was a drag to hang out with or anything. I just had a slightly different idea of what an awesome night entailed. Some of the best nights of my life were spent at home with buddies, loud music, Bella, and good wine rather than sixty-proof shots.

Much to my relief, we pulled up at an old lodge and not some super-skanky strip club. Me and my father both breathed a shared sigh of relief and Jasper put his arm around me as we marched up the stairs and into the lodge.

"Bro, really? Did you think I wouldn't do everything I could to avoid a strip club?" He laughed and winked at me, running up the stairs and jumping on Emmett's back, kicking at him like a horse. I reinstated his "decent-guy" status and followed behind them, realising just how close the two of them had grown over the last few years.

The lodge had been converted for the night into a private casino. There were card tables, a roulette wheel, and rows of trucked in slot machines. There were dealers at each table dressed in typical attire and scantily clad women with feathered headdresses walking around with drinks and bowls of tortilla chips. There was a large bar in the corner and a race track that circled the entire room with remote control cars. We were all handed a stack of fake bills and poker chips and sent off on our merry way.

I had been in contact all year with Emmett's buddies and Jasper, bantering back and forth over ideas for things to do for the night. Some ideas were really lame and not at all something Emmett would enjoy, like golf. And others truly frightened me, like a weekend trip to Vegas. The lodge was an excellent compromise.

Our rental contract with the building mandated that we had to be out of there by midnight, but by then we were all sufficiently stupefied and in no way ready to return home. The limo took us bar hopping in the tiny town until none of us could stand. Jasper, my dad and I all took turns buying trays of shots for everyone, which in hindsight, perhaps we shouldn't have bought quite so many rounds. And I was pretty sure a few guys called Rosalie when Emmett jumped up on the stage of some country bar we were at and started singing with the all girl band, throwing the lead singer over his shoulder and spanking her. He was so fucked.

_I _ was fucked.

I didn't even remember getting home, but apparently we had as we lay sprawled out across the media room furniture. Almost everyone had gone their separate ways except for myself, Emmett, Jasper, dad and Em's best buddy. We had some angry rock music blaring and the lights were out. And because we were all too inebriated to realise it was a really bad idea, we each had half drained beer bottles in our hands and there were bags of chips thrown about the floor. I vaguely remembered making the limo driver stop at a convenient store so that we could run in and grab more beer and snacks. I was reclining in a lounger, lost in a swirly, drunken stupor. We were talking back and forth occasionally, shouting over the loud music, laughing about different wild and funny aspects of the night and trying to hold on while the room spun around us. Eventually, I stopped listening and welcomed the blackout.

At some point, hours later, I woke up, rubbing at my eyes and holding my head. I felt like shit. It was still dark outside. I groaned and stretched but was too tired and sore to drag my still-drunk ass upstairs to bed. Instead I went to roll over and sink deeper into the lounger and cram a throw-pillow over my head. But realised I couldn't move because there was a warm little body curled up in the chair next to me. I wiggled in closer to her, searching for more heat, and tried really hard not to puke on her. She was still wearing her jeans and I saw a bunch of strings of shimmery beads around her neck. I briefly entertained the idea of what she had to do at whatever kind of vile establishment they were at to get those beads. Though I didn't like not knowing, I had nothing but faith in our relationship. I hoped she had a great night with the girls. I inhaled her sweet scent and whispered that I loved her in her ear. I held onto her tight, anchoring myself against her to combat the spiralling room, before I passed back out, cursing that last round of shots.

* * *

Are you starting to trust me yet?

I love you.

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	9. Being A Gentleman

**A/N: **Hi, hi, hi...

So some of you are struggling with the "past" timeline: That's my fault...here it is

Christmas 2000 (ExB "hook-up" for the first time in their Junior year in HS)

2002 (ExB graduate HS)

August 2005 (Emmett and Roaslie's wedding)

By the year 2005 Bella is a third year undergrad and Edward is finishing up his undergrad, having crammed a lot of credits into each term and taking summer courses. Also Ed is working in NYC and essentially lives there at this point, which is why he only came back for a month, he could not get away any longer than that, unfortunately.

As the "past" timeline progresses I will keep you better informed in my A/N's...sorry for the confusion.

Now let's get to the fun stuff, shall we?

* * *

Thursday, August eleventh, a group of very excited people all met at our house at six am. We had platters of baked goods, coffee and doughnuts lined up on the breakfast bar in the kitchen and heaps of suitcases on the front porch. Cars stretched down the length of our driveway and the buzz and excitement in the air was palpable. Excited squeals and animated conversations wafted through the early morning air as the fog clung low to the ground and in the thick trees around our house. It was sure to break off and the sun would show its face…eventually. But it was of little consequence, as we were all leaving Forks behind for an extended weekend. We were off to Vancouver Island and the Wickanninish Inn on the long beaches of the western coastline for Emmett and Rosalie's wedding.

I was helping dad, Emmett, and Rosalie's father load suitcases into an array of SUV's, shedding my hoodie, sweating and getting sticky despite the cool moisture in the grass and air. I tossed it up to the porch and continued loading things into the car. Rosalie stood at the top of the porch steps barking out orders about how to handle the garment bags to Emmett. I was laughing and making snide comments under my breath. As he passed me, arms loaded with aforementioned garment bags, he reached over and smacked me on the back of my head.

"Ow! Fucker!" I muttered, swearing and grumbling, rubbing my head.

"Edward!" My dad admonished me, much to Emmett's juvenile amusement.

I glared at him as he chuckled, throwing the bags haphazardly into the back of a car. I figured it would be payback enough when Rosalie saw them and realised all the outfits had to be pressed at the Inn before the wedding. I snickered and sauntered past Rosalie, smiling sweetly, then went inside to grab a doughnut and more coffee…it was going to be a really long weekend.

I was standing in the kitchen, chewing on an apple fritter with a cup of coffee in my hand talking to a random cousin that flew in for the event, when a soft pair of lips startled me by placing a faint kiss on the back of my neck. I jumped and almost spilled my coffee. I spun around to find Bella standing behind me, a broad smile on her face. I promptly, and rudely, forgot all about the girl I was speaking to and only had eyes for the buoyant little thing bouncing excitedly before me.

"Hi," I said, smiling like a fool.

She smirked back. She draped the hood of my sweatshirt over my head like I was a coat hook, stole my half eaten apple fritter, and spun on her heel to bound back out and enjoy the excitement. I watched her walk away with an odd smile on my face. I'd known that girl my entire life, yet somehow I felt like she was a completely different person that I was falling head over heels in love with, and yet…exactly the same. It was overwhelming. It was terrifying.

A ferry, immigration, and a long ass car ride later, we were checking in to the Inn. All the guests had rooms on the first floor, while the two sets of parents and the bride and groom all had suites in the corners of the Inn. Bella and Alice's room was across the hall from mine…and I had no intentions of squandering such a fine opportunity for a second time.

Everyone crashed pretty early Thursday night, haggard and exhausted from the day of excitement and travel. Rose and Em were off with mom and dad doing "wedding things", while me, Jazz, Allie, Bella, and a few stray family and friends were holed up in my room watching a really-expensive-charged-to-the-room-thanks-mom-and-dad movie. I was sitting on my bed, leaned up against the headboard with Bella reclined against my chest. I slowly combed my fingers through her hair, feeling really fucking sentimental and missing her already even though she was wrapped up in my arms. I had to return to New York in less than a month and the idea of it was already killing me. Our time was too short together.

When the movie ended the girls headed back to their room, apparently needing to rest up for their impending day of spa treatments. I pouted at Bella as she agreed to go to bed early with Alice. She snickered and brushed her thumb across my protruded lip, her eyes dancing, but she said nothing. Jazz walked Allie to the door, and as Bella was getting up off the bed, I reached out and grabbed her little wrist in my fingers. I pulled her until she fell back onto the bed and I kissed her. It was brief and chaste – there were small kids in the room – but it was not innocent.

After she left, my five year old second cousin looked up at me from the floor by my bed.

"Your girlfriend is really pretty," she smiled up at me.

"Thanks, I think so too," I winked at her, patting the place beside me on the bed that Bella had just vacated, inviting her to come up and hang with me for a bit. I didn't think it was important to correct her. I liked the idea of Bella as my girlfriend.

While the women all got pampered the next day, the men got inebriated. Well…not Emmett. We were all on strict orders that he better not be shit-wrecked or looking hung over on Saturday. Rosalie made no such stipulations about the rest of us. Emmett crashed in my room that night, preserving the next time he saw Rosalie for when she walked down the aisle to become his wife.

The ceremony was to start at four. There were a series of three antechambers in the hallway outside the main ballroom, that was being transformed into a glowing teal and white paradise, where the reception was going to take place. One of the rooms had the men getting all monkey-suited up in it and in the other two the women had all been getting primped and glammed since the wee morning hours.

Sometime around two, after the photographer finished snapping a million pictures of just the guys, I was left roaming the hallway with a beer in my hand. I passed by one of the doors to the girls rooms and heard a familiar voice singing along loudly to a familiar favourite song. I chuckled to myself at her horrid singing skills and tapped on the door. She didn't answer so I risked peeking my head in. She was alone. All dressed up in her bridesmaid attire and abandoned for the moment.

"Where is everyone?" I asked, closing the door behind me. She jumped a foot in the air, screamed, and knocked over a barstool holding a box of flowers all at once. I laughed and rolled my eyes at her.

"God, Edward, you scared me."

"Apparently," I snickered. "Bella…" I took the three steps necessary to cross the room to where she stood securing ribbon around various bouquets.

I swallowed thickly. "You look amazing," I settled…I wanted a better word but was having trouble thinking anything coherent. She was hovering over a white vanity with barstools lined up next to her, each with a different bouquet on top. She held a white ribbon in her hands and some straight pins with big pearl tops. Her dress was strapless and an odd, iridescent shade of teal with a thick white satin band across the waist. It flared out around her knees and she had on a pair of white Louboutin peep toe pumps that I remembered Allie making a huge stink at the beginning of the summer about tracking down a pair for every bridesmaid. Her dark hair flowed freely, exactly the way I loved it, wavy and unruly and exactly _Bella. _Her face was all creamy and shimmery, and coupled with the flowers she was arranging, she smelled divine.

"Thank you, so do you," she countered, blushing. I knew why she was blushing. She was thinking something dirty. I liked the way she was thinking.

I reached out and sat my bottle on the table, eager to twist my fingers in some soft waves and run my hands along some silken satin. She side-stepped me, hitting the back of the long white couch that sat in front of the windows, overlooking the beach. She smacked my hand away.

"Don't touch me," she spat, her eyes wide in horror.

"I beg your pardon?" I was appalled.

"Rosalie will murder me if I so much as smear the shimmer blush the stylist painstakingly took twenty minutes to apply to my cheeks. Let alone if I wrinkle my dress, or scuff these ridiculous shoes, or chip my nail polish, or do anything to make my hair go frizzy…" She was running out of air and her words were crashing into one another, getting increasingly high-pitched. _Fucking Rosalie, getting my girl all stressed out. _

"Okay, okay, okay," I relented, my hands in the air in surrender. "Bella, shit, breathe."

She took a deep breath and focused her panic-stricken eyes back on mine.

"Sorry. Just, don't muss me up."

I had to snort at that, it sounded so ridiculous. "I wouldn't dare," I purred. I poured it on thick. My voice, my narrowed eyes, and the drawn-in, crooked smirk I flashed her.

A noticeable tremor shimmied over her body. Exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

"Edward," she cautioned as I stalked her, closing the inches between us. She was boxed in by the barstools, the couch, and the vanity. She had no where to go – unless she came toward me before I got to her first – which would have been equally fine by me.

I still had my hands raised in good faith. I held them out to the sides, my arms extended, demonstrating that I was _not _going to touch her with them…yet. I leaned in as she eyed me nervously. I placed the tiniest, whisper of a kiss behind her ear, sucking on the sweet, sensitive skin lightly before straightening back out.

"See, I didn't muss you up," I whispered in a thick voice. Her eyes were nearly rolled back in her head. At her sides, the fingers holding the ribbon and pins twitched. She wanted to touch me. I congratulated myself on a fine victory.

She looked up at me through her eyelashes and her heavy lids, glazed over and not seeing straight. Her breath caught and her eyes raked down the entire length of my body and then slowly back up. She bit her lip, hard, and met my eyes. I was smirking arrogantly at her. I knew her better than I knew myself. After all those years, after the countless times and ways I had taken her. I could wind her up in a heartbeat and if I wanted to, I knew the exact combination of manoeuvres that would make her cum in seconds. I also knew the different ways to drag her to the brink only to push her back repeatedly until she begged for me to finish her off. Because I fucking _knew _her.

Down the hallway a gaggle of shrieking girls made their way toward us. I smirked at her, winked and backed away. She still looked stunned. I turned and opened the door. Just as I was about to walk through it her broken, raspy, little whisper made me turn around.

"Later?"

I nodded.

_I kinda thought that went without saying…_

I walked through the doorway and turned to go back to the guys room where they were probably taking celebratory shots of something strong, I could definitely fucking use one, but instead I nearly smacked headlong into the bride as her and some bridesmaids were about to dash into the room I was exiting. I staggered back to avoid the collision and the entire gaggle stopped chattering.

"What were you doing in there? No boys allowed," one of Rose's friends sneered.

"Bella needed some more pins for the bouquets," I muttered. "Rosalie…damn. You look gorgeous." I leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek and nodded at her, my eyebrows knit together. She really did look incredible. Like something out of a goddamn magazine. She beamed up at me, clearly relishing in the compliment.

"Really? Do you think Emmett will like it?" It was a dumb question. Emmett liked her covered in mud on Sundays playing football with him in the rainy backyard. Of course he was going to lose his shit over how extravagant she looked in her bridal get-up.

"Honey…yes…I definitely think it's safe to say that my brother will like it," I nodded at her, an obvious tone to my voice. She knew she looked amazing.

Appeased, she squealed and bounced excitedly, then snapped her head over to one of her friends. "Crap, is my veil crooked?"

And just like that, I was completely forgotten as they all tried to reassure her that everything was perfect. I glanced back through the open doorway to where Bella was watching and grinning at me, and mouthed "later," then went off in search of some hard liquor.

It was a beautiful ceremony. I had never been more honoured than to stand next to my brother as his best man and watch his punk ass tear up when he saw Rose for the first time like the big, fucking softy that only those of us that knew him well knew he was. Their vows were sweet, if not kind of generic, and the whole thing only lasted maybe thirty minutes. I had a hard time looking at anyone but Bella as she stood in line with the other girls across from me. Her eyes were tearing up and she was snivelling. It was endearing and she was a vision.

Pictures lasted forever as we navigated the long, rocky beaches, posed in caves and near the water doing every last ridiculous thing the harebrained photographer asked us to do. We paired up in order of our wedding party rank in just about every picture, which was annoying because Rosalie's maid of honour was some tall, strawberry blond cousin of hers that I had never met before. And while she was cute and seemed nice, all I wanted to do was be near Bella. There were a few candid's snapped where we got to just goof off; kick water from he surf at each other and dog-pile on top of Emmett. I even thought I heard the camera clicking once when I thought no one was looking and I stole a swift kiss from Bella against the wall of a cave.

Eventually we went in for the reception and sat at the head of the huge banquet room at a long table in order, putting me beside Emmett, while Bella sat all the way at the other end of the table where I couldn't even see her. By the time the first dances were underway I was aching to feel her in my arms – my earlier plan of turning her on and walking away backfiring with vengeance on my own increasingly carnal needs.

When the wedding party was called up for the second dance of the night, I knew I wasn't going to make it through an entire song with the cousin, who had begun to get more than a little bit annoying. Not to mention that the sleaze ball friend of Emmett's that Bella had been paired up with was getting awfully liberal with his hand placements. Thirty seconds into the song I lead my partner over to where Bella was, placed my palm on the guys shoulder, and scowled.

"It's about time to switch up, don't you think?" I slapped him on the back to show him I had no hard feelings and that I didn't blame him…but that it was time for him to back the fuck off my girl. He eyed Rosalie's cousin and shrugged, scooping her up in his arms and taking off with her – because to him, the two beautiful women were interchangeable. Not so much for me.

I looked back to Bella who had a satisfied smirk on her face. She laced her hands around my neck and pulled me to her so we could finish out the dance.

"Oh don't look so smug, it has nothing to do with you," I joked. "I just couldn't take anymore yammering out of that one." I nodded toward Rosalie's cousin. Bella smacked me against my shoulder. I smiled down at her, laughing.

"Edward Anthony Cullen," she began, moving in closer and laying her head on my chest. "You love me and you know it."

Something warm and delicious spread through my body. It made my eyes prick with emotion. I leaned down and rest my chin on the top of her precious head and sighed.

"So much," I breathed. I wasn't sure if she heard it. I brought my hand up to wrap my palm around the back of her head, literally cradling it against me. My fingertips slid back and forth over her scalp soothingly and I closed my eyes and finished the dance with my proper partner. In my perfect little world inside my own mind, we were the only ones on the dance floor and no one and nothing else in the universe was more important or mattered more. It was just us.

After that the party really started. The alcohol flowed freely, the laughs and dances came easily, the company was perfect, and the night was a hit. The happy couple made a grand exit around midnight but the reception wore on, showing no sign of letting up any time soon. The bar was situated in the back, near the exit that lead to the main lobby and the hallway with the elevators. I was at the bar getting drinks for me and some of the guys when Bella came up behind me. I felt her little hand slide in and then out of my pants pocket, brushing against my thigh. She stood on her tippy toes and leaned with her tiny palm against my back to whisper in my ear.

"Is it later yet?"

I smiled but didn't turn to acknowledge her yet. I slipped my hand into my pocket, wondering what the hell she put in there. My fingers met something warm and lacy.

_No mother fucking way!_

That was all it took to unravel me. _Yes…it absolutely is later._

I slowly turned my head to look at her over my shoulder. My eyes already telling her everything she wanted to know – I wanted her and was going to take what I wanted now. She smiled at me and my eyes travelled very slowly down her body. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail, hot and sticky from dancing so much, and was in flip flops instead of the $900 pumps.

_Fuck she is perfect._

My eyes were glossy and unfocused after all the scotch me and the guys were throwing back, but hers weren't in much better shape. I reached out and swiped a long finger across the exposed skin of her collarbone and then trailed it over her breasts, down her ribs and around to the small of her back, where I rest my palm, pulling her into me. She giggled just as the bartender placed a round, black tray of drinks on the bar, trying to call my attention to it, but he was the last thing on my mind. I waved him off, still locked on Bella's eyes, and pushed her backward until we were through the open ballroom doors and moving toward the main lobby. I vaguely registered it when the bartender muttered something about "typical" and I scoffed inwardly. We were not your average wedding party hook-up.

Bella was giggling and shaking her head at me as I kept pushing her backward through the lobby, a wicked smirk on my face.

"What are you doing?" she whispered loudly, trying to sound reproving but she was way too drunk and way too excited to pull it off.

"You're the one who asked if it was later, Bella," I reminded her, pretending to sound menacing.

Drunk, clumsy, and not really paying much attention, I backed her into a table in the middle of the lobby. She squealed, drawing the attention of all the hotel staff and anyone else in the lobby, and bent at the knee where the table hit her, falling into it. I reached out and grabbed her, my hands encircling her waist, saving her from an embarrassing tumble.

Drunk, horny, and not really giving a fuck, I gripped her around the waist where I had caught her, and pulled her up to carry her. She wrapped her legs around my hips and I held onto her gloriously bare ass from underneath her dress, and walked toward the hallway where the elevators were. I bumped into things and she shrieked and laughed. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face into my shoulder, kissing and nipping at me. I pinched an ass cheek where my hand lay against the sweet flesh and she cried out and looked at me with wide eyes. I didn't give her time to admonish me before I pressed my lips against hers roughly and drew her into my mouth.

She kissed me back, returning my vigour, and tangled her little fingers into my hair and tugged hard. I moaned obscenities into her mouth and she squeezed her thighs tighter around me. Somehow, by some miracle, we reached the elevators without injuring one another or breaking anything. I pressed her against the closed doors of an elevator and held her there with the weight of my body pressing into her. Her legs still wrapped tightly around me, my hard-on pressing into her unprotected center, sending waves of excitement through us.

I reached out and punched the "up" button and the doors opened instantly – the car already on the ground level. Bella spilled backward as they opened unexpectedly and I stumbled forward, catching her and falling at the same time. She hit against the back wall of the elevator car, gripping onto the hand rail to catch herself. I fell against her, kissed her, sucking on her bottom lip, one hand still up her dress gripping her ass even though she was now on her feet. I slid my hand down her leg, running my palm against the smooth skin and hitching her thigh up over my hip and pressed her hard against the wall. I knew she could feel me hard and anxious against her and I ground myself into her as the handrail dug into her back. She both moaned and whimpered from the mix of good and bad sensations. I realised we hadn't selected a floor yet and the elevator doors were still open behind us. I reached behind me without looking until I felt the bubble of the buttons against my fingertips. I turned my head just enough to see the lights out of the corner of my eye and hit the button for our floor. Bella took the opportunity to bite down on my earlobe and pull at it with her teeth, clearly wanting me to turn my undivided attention back to her.

_Well aren't you greedy,_ I snickered in my head as I willingly did as she bid me. We kissed and stumbled our way to my room. I smashed her up against the doorway, fumbling in my back pocket for a key card. It took too many tries than it should have to get the goddamn green light to flicker, which amused the shit out of Bella. She giggled, pressed between me and the door, watching me fumble. When it finally clicked, I banged open the door and carried her into the room.

"Oh, you think that's funny?" I asked, sounding equal parts annoyed and playful.

"Yes, I do," she nodded and giggled as I carried her to my bed through the dark room. I held both of her naked, little ass cheeks in the palms of my hands and stood with my knees hitting the side of the bed. Only the light of the moon reflecting up off the ocean and through the panoramic windows lit the room. She leaned back off my chest and rested her forehead against mine, panting and smiling. I stared into her eyes for a moment, getting lost in the endless black pools sweep across every memory and every emotion we had ever experienced together.

Then without warning I yanked my hands down, cupping them under her knees and effectively spilling her onto the bed with a shriek. She kicked her flip flops off and then kicked me in the chest as punishment as I crawled onto the bed with her. Her little legs were still squirming and her feet were kicking at me as she squealed and yelped, delighted and playing with me, trying to weasel away from me as I stalked her. I grabbed her hips and dragged her back to me until her ass hit my knees, smiling wickedly at her. She bit her lip and peered up at me, being quiet for the time being and communicating to me that she was going to behave. I shook my head at her. She had already been so naughty; it was too late to be that easily redeemed.

I swept my palms along her bare thighs, pushing them forward, parting her legs and lifting them so they were bent and her feet were at my shoulders. Never letting go of her excited gaze, I ran the backs of my fingers down the inside of her thighs, causing a tremor to ripple through her. Her dress fell bunched above her waist, leaving the lower half of her body completely exposed to me. As my fingers closed in on her centre, where they would have met if I continued their path, I left one hand just at the junction of her ass and her thigh, wrapping my hand around her leg and pushing it back, holding her there. My other hand continued the path, sweeping across her bare flesh, hitting her in just the right spot very briefly. She cried out and closed her eyes, her hands reaching up over her head and gripping onto the other side of the bed.

I cradled one of her feet in my hands and placed a kiss at the arch. She groaned. I kissed my way up her leg, my hand trailing behind me, bending her leg and forcing her knee to her chest as I went. The closer I got to the spot where she wanted me most, the more her little thighs quivered beneath me. Just as I was about to inch my lips over her and run my tongue through her warm folds and around her swollen, pleading flesh, I moved an inch higher and placed a kiss an inch above her pubic bone instead. She whimpered loudly and opened her eyes. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, her eyes wild, her breath irregular and fast, and she glowered at me.

"What?" I feigned innocence, raising my brows at her. She rolled her eyes and dropped back down onto the bed sighing, dramatically. She knew I would give her whatever she wanted. She wiggled beneath me, stretching her arms out long above her head and hanging limp off the other edge. I had the sudden urge to need to see her naked sprawled out like that instead of still draped in the bridesmaid dress. I reached down and grabbed her wrists and pulled her abruptly to a sitting position. She yelped and laughed and held onto my neck to keep from falling back down. I kissed her and pulled the zipper on her back down as far as I could reach, then gathered the skirting of her dress up in my hands and pulled it over her head. I unhooked her bra and tossed it behind her with the dress. She moaned as my hands slid from her back to her front and cupped each breast, rubbing my thumbs over her nipples and feeling them harden under my touch. She lay back against the bed, her arms stretched out again and her eyes closed. I sat back on my heels and took a moment to look at her. Even in my inebriated state I recognised the heavenly beauty before me.

"Fuck. I will _never_ get sick of seeing you like this," I murmured, trailing my fingers over her little pink peaks, down her ribs and across her bare stomach. She made a quiet, indiscernible humming sound, eyes still closed.

"Isabella, so help me, if you pass out I swear to god I will fuck you anyway," I threatened as her as her eyes fluttered.

She snapped them open and laughed at me, clearly not understanding how serious I was.

"I'm not going to pass out, Edward," she chastised between giggles. "It just feels so good when you touch me like that."

_Oh. _

I smirked; there was not much to say back to that. I'd rather just touch her, since she so obviously enjoyed it. I bent down and kissed the top of her bent knee, looking down at her through my eyelashes. The fact that she was all mine would never cease to amaze me. I trailed my fingers down her leg; she shuddered and moaned but kept her eyes closed. I smiled more to myself. I liked watching her. I circled my fingers around her, the warm moisture coating my fingertips. I worked it into her, dipping my fingers in slowly, half an inch at a time, her thighs were quivering and her chest was heaving. I briefly worried about the strain her poor, fluttering, little heart had to be under to make her heave in that way.

Once my fingers were surrounded entirely by her, I slowly slid them in and out; curling them and stroking the rough, little spot inside of her that I knew would undo her in seconds. I wanted desperately to bend down and taste her as the wetness coating my fingers called to me to lean over and lick. I wanted to take her in my mouth and push her over the edge. But she was so close with just the anticipation, and my fingers working in her. As I sat back on my heels, fully clothed, watching the beautiful, moonlit woman on my bed writhe and moan under my touch, her words echoing in my ears, _I just feels so good when you touch me, _I was enjoying my self to much to change a single thing. I sat, adoring her with my hands, kissing the top of her knee that I cradled from underneath in my free palm.

Her legs were shaking and she began panting and whimpering, her frantic little hands flittering around her body looking for something to funnel the sensations into. I slowed my fingers down, rubbing circles around her swollen clit with my thumb, still watching through glassy, intoxicated, and awed eyes as my little angel squirmed and mewled under _my touch. _ I reached out with my free hand, weaving my fingers in between hers – squeezing her, watching her, loving her, as she came undone, gripping my hands back and crying out my name. I had never felt so many emotions all at once. I wanted to consume her, I wanted to cherish her, and I wanted to possess her.

"I love you," she whispered, shivering. Her words were so quiet they almost got lost in the stillness of the dark room. But with nothing but the wind and the ocean in our ears, I heard them. Her eyes were still closed, her head thrown back, her fingers laced tightly in mine.

"Isabella," I murmured her name, wanting to say so much more, but choking on the words.

"Take your clothes off, Edward," she breathed, eyes still closed.

"Gladly," I smirked down at her.

I climbed backward off the bed and kicked my shoes off. I bent down and yanked off my socks, and then quickly freed myself from the rest of my clothes, leaving them in a pile at my feet. Bella didn't move while I stripped down. She was a streak of porcelain against the dark quilt, her legs relaxed open, waiting for me, and her breath evening out. I climbed back onto the bed and crawled over her, hovering above her without touching her, my face close enough to feel her breath against me.

"Open your eyes," I commanded her, leaning all my weight on my palms that framed her head.

She slowly complied, a slow smile spreading across her lips. I stared into her eyes in silence for minutes, feeling the warmth and the hum of anticipation coursing through me and between us as our bodies hovered so close to one another.

"I love you, too," I whispered, course and gravelly, drinking her in. She moaned as if my words affected her physically, and melted further into the bed, closing her eyes and waiting for me to show her how much.

Every morsel of urgency that we felt earlier – downstairs and in the elevator, smashing into the doorway and falling onto the bed – dissolved. I lowered myself down onto my forearms and lay my body against hers, feeling every inch of contact. She laced her legs around my calves and our toes wiggled together. Her hands reached behind me and dug into my ass, pulling me into her, literally. I pushed into her without further approach. I plunged deep, knowing she was worked up enough from my previous ministrations that I would not hurt her. I was desperate to feel her wrapped around me entirely and I didn't have the strength to restrain myself.

"Oh god," Bella cried out, whimpering. I rocked in and out of her, feeling the blanket of emotion and heat as it embraced me. Making love to Bella was heaven. It was everything sweet, and pure, and honest, and natural, all wrapped into one blissful moment. I was lost in a convoluted, murky place where I was watching Bella – hearing, feeling, loving – but not processing. My every nerve-ending pricked and sparked and then Bella tightened around me and screamed into my shoulder, holding me tight. I was too out of it, lost somewhere beautiful, to have it affect me; I wasn't done with her yet.

I held her against me until her trembling quieted, tracing feather-light kisses across her collarbone and down her chest, between her breasts. I pulled out slowly and rocked back into her, testing her sensitivity. She shuddered and her fingernails dug into me. I curled my arm around her and rolled, with my hand gripping her hip so that I could situate her above me, letting her control the rest of our love-making. She trailed her fingers down my chest, gazing at me with heavy eyes and a sly smirk on her lips. I smoothed my hands down her sides and dug my fingers into her hips, guiding her back and forth over me, reaching deep inside of her to places that made her cry out. She lowered her chest to mine and I encircled her little quivering body in my strong arms, nuzzling into the crook of her neck and whispering my love in her ear. Her hair blanketed over my face and shutting us off from the outside world. None of it mattered but us, what we had, what we shared. Together we were everything.

She twisted her fingers into my hair and clenched around me, and that time I felt it. That time I came forcefully, my body locking down and my arms wrapped around her back smashed her into me, twisting my fingers into her hair at her scalp and trying with everything I had to weld us together permanently.

We fell asleep, naked, content, and utterly spent on top of the quilt with nothing but the moonlight as a blanket. At some point I reached over and grabbed my pants off the floor and fished around for my cell phone. I typed out a message to Jasper.

_Stay in my sister's room tonight. But be a fucking gentleman about it._

I forced the thoughts from my mind and wrapped my arms around Bella as she murmured and wiggled into me and joined her in a peaceful, happy, stupor.

* * *

Uhm...SSward...will you marry me?

Like. For real?

Damn.

I am toying with the idea of a BPOV outtake from last chappy and a Jasper or Carlisle one from this chapter...we'll see how that goes.

Maybe later...

Also, we will dabble in the "present" timeline occasionally, but there is a lot of these two kiddies past that needs telling first.

Let me know what you think.

I love you all, thank you for everything!

Hearts, Air

~xox~


	10. Redefining Rough

Ohai there...

So sorry about the delay. I will post chapter 11 tomorrow to compensate.

You know you forgive me *sweet smile*

Well, I didn't want any lemons in this chapter, ya know, so we could develop the lovely emotions a bit more...fucking horny kids...

Follow the happy trail to the lemon.

V

V

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* * *

It was a very rare, very delightful occasion that I was able to wake wrapped up in Bella. And an even rarer occasion to be able to use it to my full advantage. Usually we had to scamper to separate rooms or worry about where everyone else in the house was. The morning after my brother's wedding was a beautiful occasion.

The bright light filtered through the panoramic windows, which we failed to draw the curtains on the night before, and prodded annoyingly at my sleeping eyelids until I groaned and cracked them open begrudgingly. I kicked out my legs and stretched, while the warm little body draped across me sighed and held onto my torso tighter, burying her face in my shoulder. It was an unbelievable feeling. Her heat against my skin, her sweet, mouth-watering scent in the air, her fingers subconsciously twitching and fluttering against my chest, my hand resting on her naked hip. It was the way every morning for the rest of my life should start. The emotions combined with the sentiments of the festivities the night before were too much for me to process that early in the morning. I yawned and rolled over, covering Bella, draping one arm and leg over her bare body and burrowing my face into her side, pulling the quilt up higher on us…trying to hide from real life. Her fingers swirled in my hair and she sighed gently.

Just as I was drifting back off peacefully, floating away on a cloud of contentment, Bella shot up to a sitting position, clocking me in the head with her pointy, little elbow in the process.

"Oh my god, Edward!" she shrieked.

"What?" I whined, dragging the word out like a petulant toddler, rubbing the throbbing bridge of my nose.

I tried to pull her back down to bed with me but she wouldn't have it. She hung over the edge of the bed rummaging around in her things that had been hastily discarded on the floor the night before looking for something.

"Edward, I left all my stuff in the ballroom last night. My camera, my cell, my purse, my shoes…oh crap! The shoes! Alice is going to kill me!"

In between rubbing at my eyes and watching her panic, I scanned the room and noticed a pile of stuff just inside the door in the hallway. I shoved her shoulder to stop her unnecessary rant and make her take a breath for long enough to look in the direction I was pointing.

She crawled down off the bed and walked over to the pile of stuff. It was an amazing view. I rolled onto my back, laced my fingers behind my head and watched. She bent down and picked up a shoe and looked at it with a bewildered expression. I had a smile the size of Texas. Not to mention other things…

"But…how?" Her little eyebrows knit together and she turned to me for answers.

I shrugged. "Probably Jasper," I offered.

"What?" she gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with panic at what he would have seen had he opened the hotel room door and stuck his head in far enough to place all her things on the floor.

"Yeah, uhm…I maybe sent him a text telling him to sleep in Alice's room last night," I hedged, not sure how she would react. It seemed like a much better idea at the time, instead of him accidentally walking in on a whole lot of sweaty nakedness. Not to mention that left us free to have the morning together before we were to appear for the 10am breakfast downstairs. But as I looked at Bella's horrified expression, I was second-guessing the gesture.

"I beg your pardon? You did what?" She sauntered back toward me. I couldn't help the smile on my face or the way my eyes raked over her naked body as she approached, regardless of her admonishing tone. She bit her lip, a wicked glint in her eye, and I had absolutely no idea what she was thinking. I didn't know if she was upset, or embarrassed, or just intrigued by the way I was looking at her.

She stopped at the foot of the bed looking up at me sprawled out with my hands behind my head smiling like a fool…ass-fucking-naked and getting harder by the minute. A slow, delicious smile spread across her lips and then I knew, without a doubt, what she was thinking.

She crawled up onto the edge of the bed, offering views of her that I stored into my mental catalogue for all the long, lonely nights in New York. She smirked up at me, placing a little palm on each of my thighs, crawling closer with her legs on either side of mine. I knew the look in her eye. I got exponentially more excited.

Keeping her eyes locked on mine, she straddled my knees and licked her palm…very slowly. Oh fuck.

_Harder. _

When her fingers wrapped firmly around my dick, my eyes rolled back in my head and I let out a long and needy hiss. Fuck her fingers felt so good wrapped around me like that. She moved up and down slowly, rotating her palm at the head causing my thighs to quake. My eyes were squeezed shut, revelling in the friction and throbbing of her little hand, when suddenly everything was much warmer and wetter. I snapped open my eyes to see Bella taking every inch of me into her mouth.

_More mental snapshots._

I could feel her tongue swirling around me and her free hand reached down to fondle anything she could reach. The warmth crashed over me, weaving in and out of my limbs and wrapping deliciously around my spine, it felt fucking fantastic. The heel of her little hand that was bracing herself on my thigh was digging into the muscle there, but it only added to the overwhelming pile of sensations. I was so close to losing myself with the warmth of her mouth sucking and sliding over me, but I didn't want to waste the glorious opportunity of a morning together without making love to her properly.

Lifting my leg up, I rubbed against her with my calf as she sat, straddling my legs. I felt the warm, wet centre against my shin as I slid it back and forth against her. She moaned loudly with me still in her mouth. The sound hummed through me and shoved me forcefully closer to the edge.

I let myself enjoy the sensations for another minute, staving off my orgasm for as long as I could, driving Bella crazy with my leg rubbing back and forth against her. When I couldn't take any more of her mouth on me without ending it all right there, I wrapped my fingers around her shoulders and tugged, looking down at her. She looked up at me from under her eyelashes, my dick in her mouth, and I swear I fucking heard the camera in my mind click. I swore liberally and tugged harder at her, pulling her off of me. She sat up, licked her lips and scowled down at me. Her mouth was swollen, red, and wet, her hair was wild about her face, and she was the fucking embodiment of sex sitting there, straddling me and pouting over her separation from my dick. I knew why she was pouting, there was a certain amount of smug satisfaction involved in watching the person you love come completely undone beneath you as you met their every need selflessly…but I wanted more. I wanted to be deep inside Bella in a very different way.

"Please?" I growled out, looking down at her, thinking that if she didn't hurry up and jump on I was going to cum any god damn way just from looking at her. I was so mother fucking close it actually hurt deep in my belly.

She grinned at my plea and crawled up over me, the head of my incredibly erect dick dragging against her stomach and in between her legs as she made her way over the top of me. Wave after wave of delicious sensation rippled through me. I grit my teeth and slammed my eyes shut, so close to blowing it all it was hard to even breathe through it.

She slithered up my body, intentionally rubbing herself against me, unable to hold back the groan it elicited from her own lips as she teased us both simultaneously. She leaned down over my chest and placed a soft peck on my cheek. It was so contradictory to everything that was happening in its innocence that it actually made me chuckle. This made the head of my dick brush against her moisture even more, which made me growl, all humour forgotten.

I gripped tightly onto her hips, lifted her in the air and positioned, and then slammed her down onto me, filling her in a swift, solid motion. She yelped and dug her fingernails into my shoulder, burying her face in the crook of my neck and whimpering. I guided her hips back and forth over me, letting the movement coupled with the way she was laying pressed against me grant her the friction she needed in the places she wanted it.

I reached one hand up and gathered her loose, wild hair into my fist, holding it out of my face and off to the side, tugging it. I growled into her ear, begging her, pleading with her. I. Was. So. Close.

My whimpers and pleas pushed her over the edge just as I lost the battle myself and mercifully we both toppled into our delicious orgasms together. I gripped her hair tighter than I meant to, tugging at her scalp, as my body locked down and I spilled into her, her insides clenching and constricting around me. She cried out…loud. Somewhere, in some far corner of my mind I hoped none of the three hundred people that we knew staying in the Inn, most of them on the same floor as us, were out in the hallway at that exact moment. But I really didn't fucking care. To hear Bella scream like that because of me was probably my favourite sound in the entire universe.

She collapsed against my chest and I was too spent to move. Sticky with our exertions and panting, I realised my hand was still tangled in her hair. Slowly I started combing through it, rubbing the tips of my fingers over the tender spot on her scalp I had pulled so fervently at. I kissed the top of her head where my hand rubbed, then angled her face up to mine and swept my lips across hers softly, apologetically. I sucked gently at her lower lip, cradling her against me, running my fingers through her hair and down her spine. She sighed into my mouth and if I hadn't been so thoroughly milked…it would have gone straight to my dick. As it was, I was complete sated for the time being, and we were going to be shamefully late for breakfast.

Regrettably, Bella moved off of me, placed a soft kiss on my forehead and each of my slumbering eyes, and then scampered off to the shower. I was too drained to contemplate joining her except in a fantasy that played out behind my eyelids as I heard her moving around under the water.

She was ready before me and went to join everyone for breakfast; I was a few minutes behind her. I grabbed a couple of proper lattes from the Inn café before heading into the banquet room for breakfast. I approached the table from behind Bella, my entire family already seated and placing their orders. I dropped a latte in front of her as I walked by, knowing she would need some caffeine after such little sleep, a lot of alcohol, and an…_early…_morning. I saw her smile out of the corner of my eye as I sat down across the table from her, next to Jasper. Allie was across from us and she said nothing, her eyes bouncing everywhere but near me, looking timid and very _un_Alice-like.

I swallowed my discomfort and turned to Jasper.

"Thanks, man," I muttered. He would know precisely what I was talking about. He was engaged in a conversation with my dad and some other relatives of mine on the other side of him. He glanced back to me.

"No problem," he drawled, with a humorous glint in his eye. He arched an eyebrow at me, expecting me to say more. I gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look. He laughed. "I guess I should point out that Alice thinks I am the one who messaged you asking if you could keep Bella entertained for the evening."

Ah. That explained her cheeky behaviour, she thought I was mad because she… Hey wait…

I glared at Jasper.

"There are all kindsof gentleman, Edward," he whispered and winked at me. Beneath the table my hand tightened into a fist. I alternated between glowering at him and then in Allie's direction, while she refused to look up from her fruit bowl at me, her cheeks flushed – something she never did.

Jasper slapped me on the back. I knew he had done Bella and I a great favour, far greater than I had asked. I choked back my discomfort yet again. I smiled at him. It was tight and forced and I envisioned smacking him in the forehead with the orange juice carafe in front of me, but I smiled nonetheless.

He laughed harder, knowing exactly how I was feeling, my smile not fooling him for second. "So?" He asked me, switching gears, prodding for me to divulge something.

"So, what?"

"So…?" he repeated, gesturing with his hand for more details. _As if. _

"Tell you what, Jasper" I relented. "As soon as I figure this shit out for myself, I'll be sure to fill you in."

"Fair enough," he smirked and went back to talking with my dad, who was pretending not to listen, but I knew him better than that.

Emmett and Rosalie left for their honeymoon as soon as we got home that night, and Bella and Charlie went off to go camping for an entire week. Alice was off in lala-land with Jasper and my parents had always been perpetually busy people…I was alone. I spent a lot of time lounging on the chaises in the backyard, swimming, and reading for pleasure - which was such a nice treat after my hectic school schedule. It would be an understatement to say that I had a lot of time to think. And every time I thought…I thought about Bella.

I hoped she was having fun camping, I knew how much she hated it. But it was meant to be a relaxing time, and Charlie had a camping trailer that was comfortable enough, and of course it meant that she did was given a pass on the other father-daughter bonding activity, which was fishing. She loathed even more than camping. The word alone made her cringe. This was, after all, the little girl who sobbed for hours the one and only time she actually caught and then accidently killed a small fish trying to take the hook from its mouth so she could throw it back. Besides, camping was just a fancy word for sitting around in a chair doing absolutely nothing and drinking beer at all hours of the day, so she was generally okay with camping. She always had only one stipulation – the site had to have showers. Charlie always complied, he relished in his time with his daughter. He had always been so absorbed by his work, and she had always quietly kept to herself, so he enjoyed the bonding trips, and so did she - they needed it. I tried not to begrudge him his time with his daughter. But that didn't mean I wasn't waiting in the driveway for them when they returned…literally.

A smile spread across my face when the old truck came grumbling up the street.

"Hey," Bella grinned, jumping down from the passenger seat of the truck as I came bounding down their porch steps to greet her. I briefly wondered what Charlie must think of our close friendship as I ran up to her and wrapped my arms around her, lifting her off the ground and twirling her around in a circle, smothering her in kisses to her cheek and neck. I was overwhelmingly grateful to have her back with me. It was a really fucking boring week.

"Hi," I whispered in her ear, setting her back down on her feet in front of me. "Hey, Charlie, did you guys have fun?" I looked to him as he scooped the bags out of the bed of the truck because I knew that whatever answer Bella was going to give me was going to be missing a steady stream of commentary that I wouldn't get until later when we were alone.

"Sure," Charlie nodded. "It didn't rain, Bella humoured her old man and pretended to be having a blast, and we ate s'mores until we almost puked…what more can a father ask for?" He grinned and winked in Bella's direction. She opened her mouth to protest but she knew she wouldn't be fooling anyone, so she promptly snapped it shut and smiled back coyly. I placed a sort-of-innocent kiss on her forehead, beaming down at her, my arm still around her shoulder. She was so adorable in her dirty cargo pants and tank top. I knew she was dying to go inside and have a real shower with her own bath products and no flip flops on.

"Go," I nodded in the direction of the front porch, chuckling. "I'll help Charlie unload the truck. Then mom and dad are barbequing later, and want you guys to come by. Emmett and Rosalie just got back this morning so they're kind of throwing a party."

She smiled, kissed the tip of my nose and bounced up the stairs to go have a proper shower. I helped Charlie throw things from the truck into the garage in relative silence. He kept eyeing me funny, but I ignored him, smiling. Though I had known him my entire life I wasn't sure how thoroughly I _knew_ him. He was a very quiet man and reserved, especially after Renee passed away. He kept everything inside, but I had a strong sense that he observed much more than he indicated. A hunch that was further confirmed when I was at the back of the garage putting camping chairs away and he chucked a sleeping bag at me to throw on the shelf above my head…he threw it really hard with a scowl on his face. I just laughed and tossed it onto the shelf, causing him to grumble even more as he walked back to the truck.

Just as we were finishing up Bella came outside in a shorts, sandals, a bathing suit top, and an unzipped hoodie. She had a messenger bag slung over her shoulder and an oversized pair of sunglasses on. She was eagerly sprinting toward my old car after giving her dad a kiss good-bye – she loved lounging outside in my parent's backyard by the pool whenever it was warm and sunny.

I told Charlie that mom said dinner would be around seven, and opened the passenger door for Bella. As I backed out of the driveway I saw Charlie standing on the porch steps with his arms crossed against his chest watching us drive away. I couldn't resist the temptation to drill Bella a little bit as we drifted at a leisurely pace through the small town.

"So, what did you and your dad talk about for an entire week with nothing to do but sit in camping chairs and roast marshmallows?" I narrowed my eyes at her with an accusatory smirk on my face. If they had discussed me in any way, it wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest, but it was fun to watch her squirm under my scrutiny.

"What do you mean?" she asked looking out the window, biting her fingernail.

"Oh nothing. Except that he practically assaulted me with a sleeping bag while you were in the house," I joked.

"He did what?" She snapped her head back to look at me with wide eyes. They told me all I needed to know. She had told him something.

"Nothing," I resigned, I was just toying with her, and I was glad that she and Charlie had a nice visit. "Wanna stop for ice cream?"

She beamed at me and nodded. Honestly, she was so easy to please.

We sat outside on a picnic table sharing our bowls of ice cream while she entertained me with stories of tent disasters and the great skunk incident of 2005. She really did have a good time with her dad, but I could tell she missed the time away from me as badly as I had ached for her. It was hard, knowing we had a limited time together as it was, and then forfeiting some of it regardless of the validity of the cause. I kicked my leg over the side of the bench, straddling it, while I recounted for Bella my riveting week spent doing absolutely fucking nothing.

She jumped up suddenly and marched over to my side of the picnic table. She sat down, straddling the bench facing me, and placed her bowl of ice cream in front of me. She stabbed the scoop with her plastic spoon so it stayed put as she crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. I rolled my eyes at her display. I knew immediately what she was doing – she was so predictable. She pouted at me until I switched bowls with her. She always had the urge to order some stupid, over the top chocolate extravaganza, all the while mocking my boring choice of chocolate chip mint…yet she always ended up getting sick of hers and finishing mine.

Every time.

She never learned her lesson. And I always switched. Because she was irresistible when she pouted like that. Every few bites, much to her dramatic displeasure, I would stick my spoon into "her" bowl and help myself to another bite of the mint. The super rich chocolate of the other bowl always gave me a headache.

When we were finished we took our time enjoying the conversation and the sun on our shoulders. I rubbed little circles on the back of her hand with my thumb as we chatted about nothing of significance. Eventually we got up and made our way back to where the barbeque was already in full swing.

When we got there a car I didn't recognise was parked in my spot as vehicles lined the driveway and both sides of the street in front of the house. I knew it was mostly Alice's doing, she didn't know how to _not _invite the entire town. I parked off to the side and we made our way around the house and into the back yard. There were a shitton of people in the pool and others scattered around on the various furnishings that littered the deck and yard. There were coolers filled with drinks at each corner of the pool and snacks strewn about on every table. The outdoor speakers were blaring rock music and mom and dad were no where to be found, probably hiding inside from the youth-group mayhem overtaking their yard.

Bella ran over to where Rosalie was entertaining my sister and a hoard of envious girls with stories of how beautiful Jamaica was. I grabbed a beer from one of the coolers and plopped down on a lounge next to Emmett and Jasper, feeling infinitely better already, just knowing that Bella was somewhere near me. The anxiety and the discomfort that I had all week while she was gone was absolved and I could relax and enjoy the sun, music and the sweet, tinkling sound of her laughter floating through the warm air from somewhere behind me.

After dinner, most of the crowd had dissipated and those of us kids that remained were splayed out on chairs and couches around the fire pit while the sun sank behind the trees at the back of the yard, bathing everything in a soft, pinkish-orange glow. We all had drinks in our hands and the music still hummed through the air, though mom and dad had long since taken control of it and it was a calm, jazzy number instead of loud, annoying rock. Mom, dad, Charlie and few of their friends were under the mezzanine against the house talking and laughing in their own conversations. I was back on my favourite chaise with Bella curled up between my legs and her head against my chest. I had my legs bent and she was running one hand up and down my shin, dragging her fingertips through the hair on my leg, while her other hand balanced a blended drink on my knee. Everyone was stuffed full of hotdogs and chips, half-drunk, and happy as we laughed and joked around the fire.

Emmett and Rosalie were curled up on a couch and Alice and Jasper sat on some chairs across from us. The fire was warm and Rose yanked her tee shirt up over her head to reveal her bathing suit top and tossed it aside. Emmett pushed her hair over to the side off her shoulder and kissed the skin there. That was when Allie noticed the mark on her shoulder and gasped, drawing all of our attention to their display.

"What?" Emmett asked with indignation.

"What the hell is that?" Alice shrieked, pointing at the two purple semi-circles on Rose's shoulder. I chuckled, shaking Bella against me. Emmett was such a fucking brute.

"Nothing," Emmett replied, a diabolical glint in his eye. Rosalie smirked and looked back at Emmett, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. Alice looked appalled.

"Jesus Christ, Em. Don't you think you should be a little bit nicer to the woman, she is your _wife _now you know?" Alice admonished.

"Oh, believe me, Alice, it _was _nice." Emmett's roaring laughter surrounded us as he mock-bit his wife's shoulder gently over the already existent teeth marks and winked at Alice. Rosalie squealed in a way that let us all know she enjoyed it, both the first time around and the second. Alice still looked thoroughly disgusted…which I admittedly found relieving.

She turned to face Jasper. "Please do not _ever _bite me like that," she ordered, still sounding appalled. With inhuman speed both mine and Emmett's heads whipped over to Jasper, daggers shooting out of our eyes. _Mother fucker._

"Hey," he shouted at us, eyes wide, his self-preservation instincts kicking in sensing imminent danger. "Don't look at me like that, she's the one who said it." He lightly shoved Alice in the shoulder trying to deflect the attention.

"Oh spare me your over-protective, older brother bullshit," she glowered at us, worming her way into Jasper's chair with him. "I'm just saying…I don't like it rough."

More daggers.

Jasper growled at her, his eyes bouncing between me and Emmett as we glared at him making a hundred thousand silent threats. He leaned down and placed a very gentle kiss on the top of her head, still looking up at us as he did so, trying to indicate how well he treated our little sister. I still contemplated various methods of torture.

Bella's quiet laughter at our little family display broke us all out of the bubble we were in and I looked down at her quizzically. We all looked to her as she giggled against my chest, covering her mouth with her hand trying to stifle herself.

"What's so funny?" I sneered down at her, pulling her against me tighter in a pseudo threat.

"Nothing," she shook with laughter. "Alice just looks so horrified, it's kind of funny." She was giggling uncontrollably, shaking her head at Alice.

"Good," Emmett and I growled in unison. Alice nodded in a way that indicated that it should be obvious.

"I'm just saying," Bella continued, directing her words at Alice. "Rough doesn't have to be _that _rough. It can be different." She trailed off, her little voice sounding distant.

"Rough is rough," Alice quipped. "No thanks."

"No it's not," Bella defended. Alice raised her eyebrows at her, asking her to please elaborate. The whole exchange was getting mildly tense and I was wondering where Bella was going with it.

"I'm just saying," she continued. "Sometimes rough can just be a slight application of force, nothing too crazy. It can be in the little ways a guy handles you. A gentle push, a firm grip, or a slight pull. But if he cares about you, he won't hurt you. He can push you against a wall or throw you on a bed - but when his fingertips make contact with your skin they are soft and adoring, even if everything else about the display is not. His palm can hold you firmly against something or pull you roughly toward him, while he is careful not to dig into you too sharply with his fingertips, or push against you hard enough that it actually hurts. Or his kiss can be urgent and rough while his hands ghost tenderly in a soft trail along your neck, arms, or cheek. He can growl and hiss into your ear and shoulder, but show you he loves you by cradling your head gently in his palms. He can demonstrate the respect he has for you the entire time he makes love to you, even if it is frantic and needy, or he is controlling and domineering, because he would never in a million years cause you harm.

"He doesn't have to mark you, or claim you, or prove that he can utterly possess you in order to do exactly that. Urgent and desperate, needy and forceful, needing to feel and consume and control and be controlled all at once can still be sincere and kind. It can still be gentle, because there is a subtle beauty and an intimacy involved in those kinds of conflicting actions – the hard and soft simultaneously - because only he knows how to manipulate your body in that way. If he loves you…he will never hurt you. And if you have trust and have faith in his love, if you give yourself over to him entirely, without abandon or humility, he won't let you down or ever prove unworthy of your feelings for him. There are all kinds of rough, Alice. Force and teeth and urgency can be all be employed without leaving angry purple welts."

She drifted off, staring into the fire absently. I was too busy gaping down at her through amazed eyes, my brows knit together in concentration during her speech to notice that everyone else's eyes were on me.

There were several minutes of silence before Jasper snorted and broke through it, snapping me from my reverie of awe as I held Bella in my arms, knowing she was talking about me and appreciating the intimacy and the powerful emotion behind her words. To know that she felt all of those things about the way I sometimes handled her, when my need to feel her consumed me and restraint failed me. To know that regardless of how we made love, she felt how much I cared for her through every urgent touch, marvelled me. I knew she loved me of course, I never really doubted that, but there was something sweet and sincere in her speech that was so much deeper than merely professing her love. It demonstrated how much faith she had in us and how well she understood the feelings I had for her, feelings I hadn't yet found the right words to even be able to tell her myself.

I shook my head and snapped myself out of my trance. Bella was fiddling with the drink in her hand, wishing she hadn't gone off quite so heatedly and drawn everyone's attention to her so thoroughly. She always hated the spotlight; I guess she just couldn't help herself. I narrowed my eyes, filled with a myriad of emotions, and smiled against the back of her head leaning against her, before taking a long drag of my beer and then looking up. All eyes were on me. I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably under everyone's gaze and also inappropriately turned on by Bella's profession.

"Thanks," I bent down and whispered in Bella's ear, the word having both a sincere and a sarcastic meaning. I placed a soft kiss at the shell of her ear before reclining against the chaise lounge and closing my eyes, allowing the warmth of Bella, her words, and the fire to blanket me in a sweet, content heat.

"No problem," she answered, still staring into her drink and not trying to conceal her response to me. Everyone heard her.

* * *

So the next chapter has all kinds of delicious answers and revelations. I think it will sate even the most enthusiastic reader.

As always, I worship at your fucking alters...ALL OF YOU!

I read and basically reply to every single review, thank you all so much. I can't believe this was just supposed to be a one/shot.

*shrugs shoulders*

HEARTS!

Air

~xox~


	11. Reckless Abandon

Well here is my promise to you, because I love you guys so freaking much!

As always, I am eternally grateful for all your amazing reviews, you guys blow me away. True story.

I think there are some pretty solid answers in here. Here's hoping you agree. *fingers crossed*

* * *

Leaving Bella the summer of my brother's wedding was difficult. It felt like our relationship, whatever it was morphing into, had grown leaps and bounds during our short time together. We had always been very connected to one another, but we were forging a deep emotional link that was strong and impenetrable. Something that left us both feeling confident and secure, not only in our friendship, but in the way our love was progressing. We had trust. This was what it all boiled down to. In our situation, trust was probably just as crucial as the love itself. But it was subconscious – it was never something either of us thought about, it was just there, deeply embedded into who we were and what we had. It was a part of our friendship and our history. We would never fail one another. We had lost sight briefly of our connection and the separation nearly ruined each of us. We would never do it again, and we both knew that.

Knowing, appreciating, and valuing all of that made walking away yet again both easier and much more difficult. Though we had both vowed to come back to Forks for Thanksgiving, so the few months apart had a bright light at the end to look forward to. They would, however, be undoubtedly long and lonely months, especially after being immersed in her for the latter half of the summer.

I made it through the separation knowing she would again be in my arms by November. This made the angst and the deep, aching need that penetrated my bones and took up residence in my heart like hot, heavy, iron burdens weighing me down whenever we were separated, _almost _tolerable. But not quite.

And so as the November rain beat against the windows of my father's study, my heart was heavy and my emotional state shattered. The room was situated at the back of the house, overlooking the pool and the back corner of the porch and the south-westernly winds thundered loudly, pushing angry sheets of water at the thin panes of glass…mirroring my mood precisely. I was curled up on one of the big leather couches, my feet pressed against the side of my dad's big oak desk, and the hood of my sweatshirt pulled over my head. I balanced my elbows on my knees and my forehead in my hands. My cell phone balanced on one knee where I had left it after begrudgingly saying good-bye and flipping it shut roughly.

My dad passed by the open doorway in the hall, glancing in, then backtracked noticing I was sitting there. He stood at the door for a moment, his head cocked to the side. I could see him out of the corner of my eye.

"You okay?" he asked, coming in and taking a seat in the club chair opposite me. His brows were firmly drawn together and his face was perplexed. My father knew me better than anyone, aside from Bella, and he knew that I had a tendency to let little things aggravate me until they spiralled and I was an irrevocable, brooding mess. He was clearly hoping to intervene and derail the process before it got too out of hand, regardless of its source.

"Not really," I grumbled, too far gone.

"Hmm. Well, what happened?" His voice was steady and soothing, years of doctorial practice coming to his aid.

"Bella has some stupid thing she has to do for the university, so she's stuck in Tempe this weekend," I muttered into my palms, still cradling my own head and staring at my knees.

"Ah," he sighed in an enlightened tone that instantly annoyed me.

"What do you mean, 'ah'?" I sneered, looking up at him through narrowed, grumpy eyes.

He raised his eyebrows in surrender, shaking his head. "Nothing." His curt response only fuelled my admittedly juvenile and unwarranted frustration.

"Oh no, you mean _something_. Let's have it," I growled. I was disappointed and looking for either a distraction or some way of blowing off some of the rapidly accumulating steam, depending on what he had to say.

"Edward." It was a caution. He was warning me to either man-up and deal with my frustration in a respectful manner, or to shut the fuck up – my choice. I loved my dad, he was the kindest, most gentle man I knew…and he never took any shit.

I rolled my eyes and pushed off the desk with my feet, sinking into the large couch, staring past him and seeing nothing. The wall of brightly coloured books blurred across my eyes as I sulked and ached for Bella. He sat there with me for a while, the silence neither heavy nor tense, just there. He happily observed me, his middle child, no longer a scruffy, muddy, mess with missing teeth and a tee ball jersey on. I knew it was hard on my parents, having me live in New York City, but we all knew that I had every intention of returning to Washington once I had all my degrees in tow. Though I had a hunch that they lived in fear of something ultimately tethering me to New York, or the east coast in general – a job, a woman, an acquired love of the city. But my heart and my home were never anywhere near the east coast – they had no way of knowing just how true that was.

Though as I refocused my eyes at the kind, quiet man sitting across from me, slowly rubbing his fingertips against themselves while staring contemplatively at the floor, I wondered if perhaps he knew more than he let on. I was riding an emotional rollercoaster and I was incredibly tempted to prod at the situation, desperate to discuss how utterly devastating the news truly was to me.

"Dad?" He looked up instantly, his eyes locking on mine. His expression was whimsical and soft. He waited for me to say something further. "It really sucks that Bella isn't coming home," I muttered, intentionally leaving the door wide open if he wanted to saunter through it. I waited.

"I know, Edward," his eyes twinkled in that wise, fatherly way.

More silence.

"Do you remember," my father began after a few minutes, drawing out the words in his I'm-going-to-tell-you-a-really-important-story-now tone. "There was that time when your mother was away at a conference in San Francisco when you kids were really young? Remember? And grandma stayed with us for a week to help look after you all during my shifts at the hospital. I think you must have been about four at the time.

"Anyway, do you at all remember the day that I had to come retrieve you from your preschool because you were being sent you home early for a 'violent outburst'?"

He laughed and trailed off, looking to me to see if I recalled any of the oddly timed trip down memory lane he was recounting for me. I only vaguely recalled something about him picking me up once and taking me for ice cream…which clearly made no sense and so I figured it was a different time. I eyed him dubiously, wondering where he was going with the story. I humoured him and shook my head 'no', encouraging him to continue.

He smiled that wide, reminiscent smile my dad always seemed to have on his face and laughed. "Yeah, I guess you were quite young. Well, I had no sooner dropped you, Alice, and Bella off at the preschool and arrived at the hospital when the nurse's station paged me for a phone call. It was the preschool requesting that someone come get you. Since grandma didn't drive, I had to make arrangements at the hospital, calling in over worked and irritated doctors who needed the time off, to cover for me so I could come and get you. Admittedly, I was quite upset with you and not the happiest dad as I was led through the classroom and into the back yard where you were waiting for me. There was a teacher sitting on the edge of a sandbox while you and some other boy with an ice pack over his eye sat cross-legged in front of her…waiting. Do you remember yet what I'm talking about?"

He waited for my response. I shook my head, a pleasant smirk on my face, delighted by where the old story was going. I wracked my brain trying to remember the incident he was speaking of but couldn't. He continued.

"Well, apparently, you kids were outside playing. The teacher told me that you were swinging pleasantly in a swing, then all of the sudden jumped off, marched over to the sandbox, yanked a metal fire truck out of some poor boy's hands and clocked him right over the head with it without warning. This obviously did not sound like my son at all, so I thought there had to be some mistake. But you chimed in immediately, completely unabashed about what you had done and assured me that it was in fact you who attacked the little boy. Then you qualified as to why you do such a horrible thing. You were fuming mad as you explained it to me. Your little hands were trembling and your voice shook. You told me that while you were swinging you were watching Bella while she played in the sandbox. Apparently she was working very hard to build a nice sand castle. You described how she had decorated it with daisies and built a mote around perimeter. You told me that she was very happy and proud of her little piece of sand architecture and showing it to a friend. And then the boy smashed his fire truck into it, levelled it mercilessly, and laughed as Bella started to cry....so you pummelled the crap out of him until the teacher pulled you off."

I had absolutely no memory of this incident whatsoever, but by the time he finished his story I was laughing loudly and nodding, congratulating my four year old self for a job well done. I found the entire image of me kicking the shit outta some clown who messed with Bella both hilarious and entirely believable...I would do the same thing as an adult.

"My point is...you were only four, Edward." My dad looked at me, his voice suddenly lower and more serious. And in that moment I realised that he had understood everything all along, without anyone ever having to paint the picture for him. It was an easy picture to paint.

"You have always been drawn to her," he continued. "You have always fought for her and protected her. Your friendship has always been something of beauty, something fairytales are made of. You have always had this urge to gravitate toward her in a very significant way. It's something that we have all noticed right from the beginning. It would be an understatement to say that I am not at all surprised by the way your relationship is now developing."

I didn't really have a lot to say. I just sat there nodding in agreement with him. Everything he said was true. I had always felt a tangible pull toward Bella, something stronger than the both of us. Something I had never tried to fight but had always embraced. I loved her from birth, literally, and never wanted to spend a moment without her. I was always hyperaware of her presence, or lack thereof, as the case unfortunately was. Every piece of who I was intrinsically as a person had a counterpart in Bella. We matched and balanced one another perfectly; it was why everything had always been so effortless, so flawless between us.

"So while I could not condone the use of violence with the little boy," dad continued after a few minutes of quiet contemplation. "I think that from that moment I knew that you and Bella were connected on a very fundamental level, and that you were destined to have a great attachment to one another. I always accepted that your friendship would supersede anything I could ever imagine. It was something in your little, four year old eyes, and the way they sparkled when you talked about her. It was the fire you had in you as you retold the story of your vengeance.

"After we left the school I took you to the ice cream shop down the street so we could discuss the morning's events. We sat and talked for a long time you and I. I think it was the first real conversation we ever had. I tried to explain a more appropriate way to handle such situations, while you explained why you were so angry and how much you liked Bella and never wanted anyone to make her sad or cry like that boy had.

"Edward…it has always been this way with you two. You have always been inseparable. And you have always been there for one another. With everything that Bella has gone through, every time things got difficult she noticeable leaned on you for support. And without fail you have always been there to carry her weight willingly and happily. It humbles and honours me to even be allowed to bear witness to how beautiful your companionship is. I can't tell you how proud of you it makes me to see how gentle and devoted you are to her. Regardless of the exact definition of your relationship, I respect how kind and adoring you are to her, and vice versa. It takes a good man to continuously act with such devotion. You've turned into a good man, Edward. That is was makes me the most proud.

"And the thing is...everyone gets how attached you two are, but I think we have always taken it for granted. Its just something that's always been there, something no one pays any attention to anymore. Your relationship, your affection toward one another - it is almost commonplace after all these years. It's just a given that where one is the other will be, or that you will be affectionate and whisper back and forth and laugh secretively with each other. That was perhaps what made it so difficult to sit back and watch when you two grew apart after high school. The tension in the air was palpable whenever you were around one another. After seeing it all blow up between you two last Christmas, I think that was when I personally stepped outside of the box and wondered for the first time if there was more between you than I was perhaps noticing. After you stormed out of the house and when Bella finally went outside to get you, both your mother and Charlie wanted to run out there and force you both back inside, especially after you hadn't come in after several hours. You owe me for that by the way." His voice dropped on the last sentence and changed in tone completely. It caught my attention. I had been listening carefully but looking off into the distance out one of the windows, recalling that night on the porch, the night everything bad fell by the wayside and I gained everything real, everything I had been missing. _Everything. _

I looked back up to him. He had one eyebrow cocked and a devious smirk on his face. I was a little confused. He could tell.

"C'mon, Edward. When was the last time you have ever seen Charlie drink anything but beer? Well that night he was throwing back the vodka and tonics that I was forcing on him...strong ones at that. Grey Goose can get you inebriated much more efficiently…say…if someone thought it would be wise to keep someone else on the couch instead of roaming around outside looking for children who were otherwise occupied."

I gaped at him as he chuckled to himself with the memories of the night from his perspective. Though he was no longer looking at me, intentionally averting his eyes while a telltale pink hue crept up from the collar of his shirt. I redirected my gaze back out the window, wondering what exactly he knew from that night – when it hit me. I got up and walked to the window. I cursed under my breath for a good two minutes straight, placing my palm on the glass and looking down at the porch. I spun around and found my dad no longer laughing but rather watching me with an expressionless face as the wheels turned in my brain. I shook my head slowly willing it to be so. He nodded in contradiction. It was my turn to go every shade of pink imaginable.

"Please tell me you're kidding me," I whispered, looking at the floor and feeling more like a fourteen year old that got caught wanking off and not a twenty-two year old man who presumably _would be_ making love to his girlfriend.

"Frankly, part of me wishes I was," he laughed awkwardly. "But no, I'm not kidding. A few hours after you stormed out I came up here to grab the good bottle of scotch that I had left on the liquor cart. I saw enough to finally snap a few puzzle pieces together in my head. And I'll admit that I've looked at you guys much differently since that night."

"No shit," I sneered, cheeks flaming.

"No," he laughed, "not like that, Edward. I just mean...everything seems so obvious now. But before that night I honestly never saw it. But now that I do it all makes perfect sense and I can reflect on your relationship and see the natural progression you two have made. And of course, Edward, you should know that I have never mentioned what I witnessed to anyone, not even your mother. Well...e_specially _not your mother."

I rolled my eyes and sighed, horrified at the idea and still embarrassed that even he saw whatever it was that he saw, depending on the time he looked out the window. But leave it to my dad to diffuse an awkward situation expertly. Thinking about it all only made me ache for Bella even more, unfortunately. Though I did have an odd sense of peace washing over me at the realisation that my father understood the true depth of my feelings for Bella. It felt nice to finally have somebody know.

Dad walked over to the aforementioned liquor cart in the corner of the room that was always aptly stationed by the pool table, and poured out two fingers of something caramel coloured into tumblers. He came back to the sitting area where I had again flopped back onto the couch. He handed me a glass, silently held his up to mine and took swig, toasting all that had been revealed. I followed suit. After swirling what I discovered to be the bastard "good scotch" around in his glass for a minute, staring idly into the crystal, he looked up at me with respectfully curious eyes.

"So, where does this leave you?" he questioned politely. "If you don't mind my asking."

I took a deep breath. My gut response was to tell him fuck if I knew, but somehow that seemed inappropriate after the refined and earnest method with which he breached the subject, deliberately building my trust and choreographing his appreciation of my feelings for Bella. I wanted to give him something more than the crude, knee-jerk response. I thought about it for a few minutes. He granted me all the time I needed while sipping his scotch and smirking into the glass.

"Lonely," I whispered after much thought.

It was pretty much the only thing I could formulate. It was such a small answer in comparison to the time it took to derive, but dad did not begrudge me. Instead he murmured an "I bet" and took another sip from his tumbler.

"In love," I added, meeting his eyes, wanting the gravity and the truth behind the statement to register with him. He nodded. I felt the need to clarify further.

"I mean...everyone knows I love Bella, that's a given. But its different now. I don't love her the way Emmett loves her, I love her...so much more." I broke off as emotions pricked at my eyes, halting my words until I could breathe without a hitch.

"I understand," he assured me. "So it's been almost a year since then. What's going on?"

At some point I knew I would have to explain exactly how long things had been occurring between Bella and I, and that it didn't all start that night...but I didn't feel that moment was the time. I wasn't quite ready to take that large of a leap. Instead I answered his polite inquiry while focusing on the present and not divulging our lengthy history. Again, I thought long and hard before I spoke, needing the next words out of my mouth to be perfect.

"To be honest dad...we've never really sat down and had _that _conversation. But I know we are on the same page. I mean…it kills me not to be near her. It actually physically hurts, like a real pain, in my gut and in my bones. Everything aches. All the time. And it's getting worse. It hasn't always been like that, not this bad. I used to…well…I actually don't remember what it feels like to _not _be both suffocated and liberated by my love for Bella. I just know that I can't fucking _breathe _when I'm not around her. And I don't know who I am separate from her. I feel like everything that I am _is _her. I am the truest form of myself when I'm with her. It's the most natural thing I have ever done…loving her.

"I really just I think we are both kind of muddling through right now. Its like we have our heads down and were just pushing forward without much thought or discussion. Were just trying desperately to get through the next few years until we can be in the same place at the same time and really focus on us, and being together properly. Because as it stands we are separated so often, that if we focused on it, or allowed it to become an item of discussion it will only make it that much more real, and painful. I've always planned on attending Columbia's grad program, everyone knows that. And at the fucking rate that Bella's going her undergrad is going to take her another couple of years. We just need to get through these next few years. I mean, Jesus, dad, we've waited our entire lives to finally have each other like this...we can survive a couple more if that's all it takes."

"And then what," he asked quietly, not wanting to pry too much, but clearly hoping I would divulge more.

"What do you mean 'and then what'?" I sneered. "And then I can finally and happily claim everything I have ever wanted. Bella will be a Cullen someday, dad, I can promise you that."

I wasn't looking at him, so I couldn't be sure, but I thought I heard a faint gasp at my bold declaration. Which really wouldn't have made any sense given that what I was saying was not that shocking in any way. Bella had always been family, and I had every intention of making it official someday by marrying her. It was just that first, ideally, we would live in the same time zone and more people than just my dad would know how serious we were. Until then...

_Muddle through. _

"So...," dad said, eyeing me with his serious brows knit together.

"What?" I scoffed. Jesus, what more did he want from me? I had just admitted that I wanted to fucking marry the woman, did he want an exact date?

"So," he continued, smiling at me. "Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Your seminars are Wednesdays and Fridays, right? This Friday's has been cancelled due to the holiday...if I am doing the math right...doesn't that give you six days with nothing to do after tomorrow?" He looked at me as if I was mentally slow...which apparently I was. He was fucking brilliant. I grinned like a fool. Then sprinted to his desk immediately to use the computer and book some plane tickets, leaving my scotch on the coffee table in front of the couch. As I began clicking links I looked up and noticed dad walk over and down the rest of my drink. I chuckled, I couldn't blame him. A lot had been revealed in that room by both parties that night. And it felt fantastic.

After giving my family, and especially my mother, everything I had in me for two days, trying desperately to compensate for all the holidays I had inexplicably missed out on and how much of an ass I was the year before, I was on a plane bound for Phoenix.

I was nervous. Why the hell was I nervous? I guess because I had never been to Bella's collegiate world before. We both had completely separate lives in our own little corners of the country that were reserved for our studies. I mean, I knew all about her roommate, and the little apartment that they shared on campus, and she had described in painful detail every inch of campus a hundred times over…but still…I had never actually _been _there. And I knew she was busy writing something for the university paper that she worked on, covering some festival that they held annually at that time of the year. I was just afraid that I would be in the way or that it would be weird that I just unilaterally decided to come visit. It seemed like a much better idea in my fathers study submersed in heartfelt conversations of her and upset by her absence. The closer the plane got to Phoenix the more my nerves were heightened. But also, I was so fucking excited to see her.

After I landed I text Bella. No surprise that she was at the Café Biblioteca, her self-professed home away from home just outside the Hayden Library on campus.

_Fuck I miss you, Bella. Are you working hard? – E_

_You swear too much. And I miss you so bad my heart actually hurts. I'm just having lunch at the café working on this stupid assignment. – B_

_How is it coming? –E_

_Done. Just being nit-picky with it now. You know me. –B_

_I'm glad you're done. –E_

I made my way to the café with a dopey smile stretched across my face. There was a definite spring in my step and a flutter in my heart at the idea of seeing Bella in the next couple of minutes, not to mention the idea of wrapping my arms around her and planting the hugest, most passionate kiss imaginable on her in broad daylight with no regard for who saw us. I blended seamlessly with the students who remained on campus over the holiday weekend as I walked among them toward the café, my messenger bag slung over my shoulder. I smiled to myself as I pulled open the door to the café, several people exiting at the same time. I let them through the doorway first, holding the door open and scanning the little room for Bella, my heart dancing. My phone buzzed again just as I walked into the café.

_Me too. But it still doesn't change how horribly this weekend turned out. –B_

I read her last message with a smile. Perfect.

In the corner, tucked away from everything else, was an array of deep seating chairs and couches surrounding a low coffee table. Bella was curled up in a chair, her knees tucked beneath her, her cell in her palm, and her laptop balancing on her lap. There were two large coffee cups next to her that looked empty and a barely touched yogurt.

_Well, that's a shitty lunch, _I noted, grinning as I approached behind her quietly. I vowed to set the matter right personally by treating her to a far more superior dinner.

I stood behind her, grinning down as she sat completely oblivious to my presence, chewing on her lip and scanning the article she had typed on her laptop. She looked so fucking adorable in all her collegiate glory. Her tattered jeans and ASU hoodie, a pair of chucks curled under her legs. But the thumb of her right hand beat steadily against the edge of her laptop and her knee bounced, I knew those were signs of trouble. She was upset. And considering her article was finished on time I assumed it was regarding her last text message, _how horribly this weekend turned out. _

I crouched down and hovered over her left shoulder, so I could whisper in her ear, knowing I was going to scare the shit out of her but thinking it would be kind of funny.

"I beg to differ," I whispered slow and seductively into her ear, smirking like a fool.

Bella screamed, clapping her hand over her mouth. She spun around to the back of her seat to face me. I expected as much, and snickered as I watched the display. Her eyes were huge, her hand was still hovering over her lips, and she was panting. Her eyes softened and then grew excited all in a matter of seconds.

She hoisted herself up onto her feet on the cushion of the chair and catapulted off of it and into me. I had to reach out and grab her, holding her to me in order to catch her and keep her from falling. I could do nothing about the chair as it tipped over and crashed loudly to the floor at my feet. She wrapped her legs around my waist and threw her arms around my neck, squealing, not from terror but from delight. Then, without further indication, _she _kissed _me. _The kiss was as huge and passionate as the one I had planned on laying on her. Her fingers twisted in my hair and she tugged at it forcefully, demanding I get closer. Her tongue met mine greedily and she sucked and swept her lips across mine with an uninhibited hunger, moaning and whimpering into my mouth. I held her there, my arms laced tightly around her back, the chair crashed at my feet, her fingers tugging at my scalp, and our kiss the only thing in the universe worth dedicating any attention to, for what felt like decades. I was an instant fan of reckless abandon.

It was perhaps the most beautiful moment of my life. In addition to relief at holding Bella, literally, in my arms, and the weight of each emotion as it coursed and flamed through me, Bella's sweet, soft, little voice whispered at the break of each kiss murmuring the most wonderful words my aching heart had ever heard.

"Edward…I love you. I love you. I love you…"

* * *

Say it with me...

"AWWWWWWWWWWW!"

Right?

These kids are just too damn adorable. I love them!

Wonder what Tempe has in store...?

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	12. Loving Tempe

Oh Tempe...sigh...

My wittle heart, it flutters for these two. I also may be slightly (insanely) envious...

*pouts*

As always, I worship every single one of you reviewers, you astound me!

THANK YOU!

Enjoy, there's just so much love to go around...

* * *

"Oh god. Bella," I moaned, squeezing her hard to my chest while her legs clamped around my waist. Her little fingers held tight in my hair. She whimpered and whispered things, and shook with emotion against me.

Our lips moved together, fervently and with precision, as I continued to hold her suspended in the air.

"Isabella," I practically whined, savouring every touch and emotion as it pulsed through me. Needing, craving, hungering… the mere proximity of her providing me with a wealth of peace.

"Bella…I love you, too. I love you. So…much…," I managed to whisper in between kisses.

A delicious and familiar warmth spread through me. I never wanted to be away from her again, I hated it. I was growing more and more addicted to the giddy, sweet, high of having her near me, touching me, kissing me, and professing her love. It was like a drug to me.

Love… Bella was the only woman I had ever loved. Every new height we reached, every new level of passion and intimacy, of understanding and accord, brought on more attachment. More longing and hunger. I struggled to stay afloat every time it all threatened to tow me under.

And of course, I knew that it was unrealistic to never be away from Bella again, not yet anyway. So instead, I vowed to make the most of the time we did have. The weekend. It was destined to go by too fast.

I slowed the kiss down, gently lessening the movement of my lips over hers, realising we had not even greeted one another and yet we were moments away from going at it in the middle of the café. Still, I sucked sweetly at her lower lip one last time, drawing it into my mouth and nibbling at it, not quite ready to release her – socially acceptable behaviour be damned.

Somewhere behind me I heard a girl whispering about us. "Damn. That's hot," she said. I couldn't help but chuckle. Bella must have heard her as well because she broke away from me reluctantly, leaning back into the palms of my hands that were unapologetically cupping her perfect, little ass. She smiled with bright eyes and puffy lips. I smirked down at her, eyes afire.

"You're in Arizona," she beamed at me.

"Yup. I'm in Arizona." I licked my lips and narrowed my eyes at her, trying to read her mind. She seemed glad I was there. She looked radiant and happy, just like a kid in a candy store. Well, maybe not a _kid_… I raked my eyes over her with a rapidly growing…excitement.

"So? What brings you to Tempe?" she asked, a wry grin on her lips.

"Well, from the looks of the sorry excuse you're trying to pass off as a meal, I'd say I'm here to see to it that you get a proper dinner for once," I answered, nodding over her shoulder to the coffee and yogurt. She rolled her eyes, still smirking. "I'm serious Bella. You have to eat better. And while you're at it, you should get more sleep. You need to take better care of yourself or you're going to get sick." I freed one hand from underneath her and swept my fingertip across the faint purple circles under her eyes. I hated not being around to ensure she was better cared for.

"Are you done with the lecture?" she scoffed. I frowned at her and squeezed the flesh that still rest in my palms as my rebuttal. She squeaked and bucked against me teasingly, but I held on for one last moment.

"Tell you what. I'll grant you the eating better, Edward. But as for the getting more sleep bit…can I wait a few days to start working on that one?" She winked at me, nibbling on her lip.

My eyes flashed eagerly. I let her slip through my hands, sliding against me until her feet softly hit the floor. My body raged inside at the delicious friction. I trailed my fingers from her hips up the sides of her body at a deliberately tortuous pace. She knew what the gleam in my eye meant.

"Mmm…that sounds like a fair arrangement," I murmured, planning all the different ways I was going to have her over the weekend.

Bella shuddered noticeably, her lips twitching with a suppressed grin. She reached behind her to grab and quickly drain one of the coffee cups that sat on the table. She scooped up her laptop and shoved it into her bag and then looked up at me smiling.

"Well then, Mister Cullen…how long do I have you for?" Her eyes glimmered and her tone was eager and animated. However, the question, combined with her wide, vibrant eyes and glowing, little face all made her innocent words weasel their way straight into my heart and anchor themselves there. I wanted to tell her that she has always had me, and that she was more than welcome to have me for the rest of our lives if that was what she wanted. I would happily acquiesce.

I swallowed thickly, biding my time. I reached out and took her bag, draping it over my shoulder next to my own. I brushed her hair back off her face and cradled her cheeks in my palms with a small, earnest smile on my lips.

"How long do you want me for, Bella?" I asked, my voice low and thick with my undeclared dreams.

It took her a moment. She was led astray by the sudden emotion swimming behind my eyes. "I can't answer that," she finally whispered. She tried to look away, to look down at her feet in her classic diversion tactic, but my palms held fast.

"Can't or won't?" The difference was critical. "Can't" meant that she hadn't yet figured out exactly how she felt about me. "Won't" meant that it hurt too badly to discuss it. I tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, granting her all the time she needed to answer. I toyed briefly with the ever-present diamond studs that were once her mothers, circling my thumb over them.

Her eyes met mine; they were tender and overwhelmed as unshed tears began to coat them in a glossy sheen. 

"Won't," she finally answered. The tiny, solitary word hitching as she spoke it. "Not yet…" My entire body relaxed, knowing she was thinking and feeling the same things I was.

_I want you always and in every way imaginable. I wish I never had to let you go. I don't want talk about this right now…_

I cleared my throat, pushing aside the desperation I felt for time to hurry the fuck up and let us be together already. "Well, in that case...how does until Tuesday morning work for you?" I lowered one of the hands that was cupping her cheeks and slipped it into her hand, leading her towards the door and it's promise of fresh air and a more affable atmosphere.

"I'll get back to you. I'm going to have to check my schedule," she retorted, tossing her empty coffee cups into the trash as we head out the door. I couldn't help but laugh.

"You do that. In the mean time…entertain me. We're in your territory here, Bella." My tone was light and teasing. I winked at her and tugged on her hand that was in mine, drawing her closer to me. She stopped and gazed up at me in the middle of the path leading away from the library.

Placing my other hand just below her chin, I tilted her face up toward mine. We were both smiling like idiots at each other. I bent down and brushed my lips across hers. The kiss was light and gentle, nothing like the urgent one we shared in the café. This was unhurried. It was because I realised that I was actually standing in Arizona with Bella, and that we had four solid days together. There would be nothing around to distract, divert, or otherwise impair our interactions. It was us and nothing more – which was absolutely everything.

I kissed her tenderly and her body melted into mine. She laced her arms around my waist and clung to me. My entire body lit on fire when I felt her soft, wet tongue sweep across my lower lip. I could feel her grin against my mouth as we moved together in our familiar rhythm. Our tongues caressed, and inside my tennis shoes my toes curled, grappling with my restraint.

Eventually, I slid my hands around the back of her neck and into her hair. I combed my fingers through and then pulled gently out of the kiss. I looked down at her, my heart swelling and everything throbbing for her. I could only hope that she could either read my mind or at the very least…my eyes. Because words failed me. I had no way of forming them or defining everything that she was to me and everything that each moment spent with her signified.

She continued to hold me tightly, her fingers woven together behind my back, locking me in her embrace. There was nowhere else in the universe I would have rather been. I wanted to say something, so I settled on something honest, if not shamefully inadequate.

"Bella, I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am to be here. On your turf," I added, winking at her. I continued raking my fingers through her hair. She said nothing, but her smile and eyes gushed everything that we were both feeling.

I leaned down, placed a soft kiss to her forehead, resting my chin against her head, absorbing her. Countless shared emotions flowed silently between us in that moment. I turned and kissed her temple, then down to her cheekbone, my eyes open and drinking in hers the entire time. I moved to her jaw and then ended in the spot that drives her crazy just behind her ear.

"I love you, Bella. I know you know that. But I really, _really _love you," I whispered quietly into her ear, holding her face in my palms. I could not bring myself to raise my voice above the quiet murmur. The emotion was too thick and it made my tone shaky. Her hands unknotted behind my back, dropping abruptly to hang limp at her sides. Her body was pressed against mine, so I felt her breath hitch and heard her gentle and sweet gasp at my words.

She stared up at me through her eyelashes for a long time. Her eyes narrowed and her chest heaving. She blinked a few times. It was slow and laboured, her eyelids remaining closed for far longer than was necessary at each interval.

"Edward," she whispered, eyes closed. "I…" her quiet voice cracked and her lips trembled silently. I knew what she was feeling, and I didn't want to see her tears, they were unnecessary. We were on the road to a happy ending, no matter what the obstacles were. It was just going to be a lengthy road. But at least we were on the same page. So I cut her off.

"I know, Bella. Believe me, I know. It'll be okay." I tilted her little face up to mine and kissed her once more. It was a beautiful, symphonic mesh of the previous two kisses. It was everything needy and demanding intermingled with our adoration and commitment. It was sweet and it epitomized everything that we were. Our friendship and lifelong devotion, which ruled above everything else.

We slowed. One last graze of my lips across hers and we both pulled back. I took her little hand inside mine and we started walking again. We walked along the cobblestone trail between the courtyards for a few minutes in a peaceful silence. Our hands swung together between us. Then, suddenly, Bella swirled on her heel toward me with a bright smile lighting up her face.

"What?" I asked, grinning at her. Her excitement was always so contagious.

"I just can't decide what I want to show you first," she squealed. "There are so many places to take you and so many things to do. I don't know where to start!" She bounced and smiled and was the picture of adorable. I happened to have a few ideas of my own about what I wanted to do first, but she was so damn cute that I kept my scandalous thoughts to myself. For the moment.

I did however, give her a rather suggestive smirk. "I'm at your mercy. We can do whatever you like, Bella." I gestured in front of us for her to continue onward. She shrugged her shoulders excitedly and then tore off across the path, towing me behind her.

"I know where we have to go first. This way," she shrieked, bounding up some stairs.

Moments later, we found ourselves in the university bookstore. Bella wove between the aisles, clearly looking for something specific. I tried to follow behind her but she was a girl on a mission. She grabbed something off a rack, tossed me a coy smirk over her shoulder, and then ran over to a wall with tubs of small items. She quickly grabbed something then walked away. I gave up following after her and settled against a wall near the storefront chuckling under my breath.

She smiled at me and made her way to the counter to pay for whatever she had in her arms. I shook my head at her and met her at the cash register. But I was too late. The cashier was already handing Bella a sales slip to sign.

"What the hell did you just buy and why?" I asked her. "Don't you own enough of this stuff?" I scanned the red and gold room, recognizing the Sparks logo that was on all of Bella's university paraphernalia.

She smiled at the woman and took her bag from across the counter. "Thank you," she said and walked to the exit without waiting for me to join her, knowing I would.

I dashed out after her and gently retrieved the bag from her little fingers, rifling through its contents. "You bought me a hoodie?' I asked, noticing that the maroon sweatshirt was a men's zip-up.

"Yup," she grinned. "You need something that says ASU on it. Ya know, to commemorate your first visit. Besides, it's about time you have something from my university to carry around with you so you don't forget about me when you're in New York." She smiled up at me bashfully.

_Was she claiming me? _It was endearing, if not wholly unnecessary.

"Bella. I hardly need help remembering you. It doesn't matter where I am, you're all I think about. Trust me. Besides, a keychain would have been sufficient, don't you think. These hoodies are like eighty bucks." I scowled at her. I adored both the hoodie and the thoughtfulness behind it, but I didn't like the idea of her using her already scanty funds on me.

"Oh, I did get a key chain," she snickered, holding up a little metal, red and gold spark-creature. She grinned proudly over at me. She held her hand out for me to drop my keys into her palm so she could put the devil thing on my key ring.

The gesture was calculated and cunning. She knew how badly I detested gaudy key chains and those people who have like a million fucking things on one ring and barely any keys. My key ring had four keys with little rubber colour-coded markers on them. That was it. She wiggled the mascot onto my key chain and handed it back to me, trying to stifle her giggles. She was really fucking happy with herself. She knew that nothing would ever make me take that goddamn thing off now that she had given it to me.

"Thank you," I surrendered, and leaned over to kiss her. "But I still feel bad about the hoodie, Bella. You should have at least let me pay for it."

"Let me ask you something, Edward. When you take me out for that 'proper' dinner tonight, who is going to pay? Are you going to let me to pay my half? Or what about when I drag you to the little ramshackle, hole-in-wall movie theatre at some point over the next couple of days, that I fully intend on taking you to. Can I pay then?" She stood back with her arms crossed defiantly over her chest and her lips pursed at me.

"Aren't you presumptuous," I chided, pinching her side and kissing her cheek as we walked along the path. She squealed and jumped out of the way of my fingers, then scowled at me.

"No, not presumptuous. I just know you, Edward." She rolled her eyes.

I couldn't argue with that.

"So where to next?" I asked, switching gears. I held her hand in mine once again as we walked, and it felt amazing.

"Next stop is my apartment. _Definitely _my apartment," she smirked. Her eyes glossed over and if her tone hadn't given away her intentions, her body language would have. She leaned against me as we continued walking toward the edge of campus, peering up at me with heavy lids. The small smile she wore while she eyed me sent shockwaves of arousal through every inch of my body. I was quickly developing a newfound love for barging in on her Arizona life. I would definitely be doing it more often.

She led me across the street and up an alley to her apartment building. While we walked she told me all about the story she had covered for the paper and how she shaped her article. I was glad that she was actually getting to write some legitimate stories after slowly working her way up the food chain on the newspaper staff. Her degree was a double major in English and Journalism and I was eager to see what she intended on doing with it – once she finally obtained it that is.

Bella's writing had always enthralled me. She had a different way of wording things than most people. It was captivating and awe-inspiring. Her words could bring me to my knees in seconds, eating out of the palm of her hand. She debated for years as to whether she was more interested in creative writing or journalism, she had obviously chosen the latter, though I held out the hope that she would some day put her creativity to the presses. Her talent was too remarkable to be confined strictly to news.

She blushed beautifully as I reiterated my dreams for her while we crossed the parking lot of her apartment building. She bit her lip, always uncomfortable with compliments, and looked off into the distance. I tugged at her wrist so she would look over at me.

"Hey, don't doubt yourself, Bella. Everything you write is extraordinary. You'll go far with it, believe me," I praised. It was nothing less than the truth.

"Thanks," she whispered, looking away again. She was so predictable. But it was important for me to know that she appreciated how much I believed in her. I don't think she heard it enough from others.

"So...did I mention my roommate was out of town all weekend? She's in Utah with her family for Thanksgiving," she said, intentionally diverting the conversation.

"No... No you most certainly did not mention that," I purred, the shockwaves amping up a few notches inside me. _Are we there yet?_

Bella lived in a small two-storey townhouse that was situated directly across from the campus. She opened the door and waited for me to go through first, chewing on her lip like she was nervous I was going to critique her little apartment.

From the front doorway you could see the entire main floor, it wasn't that large. The furnishings were sparse, but the walls were covered in posters and candid, unframed photographs that were randomly stapled to the walls. It was cozy, and cute, and very Bella, all the while screaming "college apartment". It was much nicer than the dive I lived in with two other guys in downtown New York City.

She stood on the little patch of linoleum in front of the door as I walked around, snooping at all her stuff. The tiny kitchen was pristine, with a teakettle on the stovetop and a row of cereal boxes lining the counter that obviously did not fit in the non-existent cupboard space. Across the bar was a little dining room with a wooden table painted yellow and a mixture of chairs scattered around it, all brightly painted and chipping. There was a large window with sheer, yellow curtains in the dining room and the sun beamed in through it and bounced off the water reflecting in the vase of fresh flowers that sat in the centre of the table. I smiled at them, recognising the arrangement as the one Alice had helped Charlie pick out on-line the night Bella called with the news that she couldn't make it home.

The living room had a TV tucked into a nook on the floor and a radio balancing on a stack of old textbooks. I laughed at the makeshift TV stand, attracting her attention. She made her way to where I stood and scowled at me.

"What?" she asked, pouting.

"Nothing," I chuckled. "Just that this might explain some of your marks." I tapped one stack of books with my toe. She rolled her eyes.

"They are old, thank you very much," she quipped. "And they wouldn't take them at the buy-back, so I'm just trying to get my money's worth.".

_God, I love her. _

Over the couch was a huge whiteboard with markers dangling off the side on strings. It was obviously used as a message relay between Bella and her roommate and also a source of amusement with funny quotes and drawings. I instantly recognised all the places where Bella's shoddy, loopy handwriting had marked up the board.

"You almost done snooping around down here?" she quipped as I looked through a pile of CD's stacked against the radio in the corner, most of which I recognised as Bella's. A few of which I recognised as _mine. _I held up the new White Stripes CD that I bought over the summer, cocking an accusatory eyebrow at her. She blushed and shrugged her shoulders.

"There's no way you even listen to this," I scoffed, placing it gently back onto the stack anyway. Bella preferred a random mixture of Carly Simon, Thom Yorke, KT Tunstall and Linkin Park…she was constantly mocking my generic and mainstream taste in music.

"I'll burn you a copy before you leave," she joked, slowly climbing the stairs backward, eyes locked on me as I rounded the railing and began following her. Stalking her. Her lip slipped through the teeth that had been holding it prisoner as she caught the look in my eye. Her face slackened and her breathing accelerated. It was a predictable effect that I could always rely on getting of her when I hunted her like that – images of sex flashing behind my eyes and oozing from my every movement, as clear as day to her.

I swear I saw her little knees wobble as she took the next step behind her, fingers clenched around the railing and white in their effort to keep herself upright. I took the stairs two at a time in several slow, calculated steps, until I was on the stair directly beneath her. I reached out and slid my fingers over hers, prying her little fingertips off the banister, never releasing the lock I had on her eyes. I pushed the hair back off her shoulders and dragged the backs of my fingers down her neck, over her shoulders, and across her collarbone. I could feel her chest heaving beneath my touch and her heart sputtering. God help her. She was about to orgasm on the spot just from my hands sliding across her chest.

I licked my lips in smug satisfaction, quirking one eyebrow at her and continuing my finger's trail down her body. When I had released her hand from the railing she let it fall to her side, but as I knelt down on the stair below her, she reached it up and tangled it in my hair. My palms continued to trail down her body painfully slow.

I smiled, strictly for my own amusement as Bella could no longer see my face, as I hugged my hands to the backs of her knees. I placed a kiss at the top of each one and then in an abrupt move, I flung her over my shoulder. She shrieked and laughed as I climbed the remaining stairs holding onto her tight.

At the top of the stairs were three doors. One was open, displaying the bathroom. The other two were presumably bedrooms but which was whose I had no way of knowing.

"Which one?" I demanded in a low, burning voice.

"Huh?" she muttered, upside down and garbled. "Oh, that one, that one." Urgent. I liked that.

I growled and bit her hip hard that was right by my mouth. She cried out, pummelling my back with her little fists. I pushed open the bedroom door with my foot and crossed the room in three steps. I stood next to her little, twin bed with my back to it and let her spill onto it, tumbling onto her head and wailing out in protest. Then I spun around and jumped onto the bed with her, barely giving her enough time to crawl up to the pillows before I climbed over the top of her. I hovered without touching her, one hand braced near her head and the other by her hip. Her eyes met mine for a brief second just as I lowered my head to kiss her. I smiled at her and then drew her perfect, little lip into my mouth, sucking and savouring her.

Bella wrapped her legs around me, driving me closer. I quickly rid myself of my jacket and tee shirt, tugging at her hoodie and growling in frustration – I couldn't get us naked fast enough. I needed to feel her. Make love to her. Be inside her.

We kicked off our shoes, and I rolled off of her and onto my back so I could worm my way out of my jeans, while beside me Bella did the same. There would be plenty of time for romance later, at that moment, there was nothing but frantic urgency.

Just as I was kicking my jeans onto the floor, Bella climbed on top of me, her warm body sending curls of excitement through me. I still had my jeans tangled on one foot but I couldn't move my legs to kick them off with her sitting on my thighs. She was panting, her eyes narrowed on mine – just as hungry as I was. She reached behind her and yanked my pants off my foot and whipped them on the floor.

"Thanks," I muttered, wrapping my long fingers around the curve of her bare hips. I gently sank the tips into the flesh just enough to have a firm hold on her body.

"My pleasure," she purred, flattening her little hands against my chest.

"That's going to be the idea," I returned, ghosting my hands up over her breasts and back down her sides and then back again, repeating the sensual, thrill-inducing trail. She trembled underneath my hands and pushed off of me enough to position herself over my readily awaiting dick.

Her sharp fingernails dug into my skin as she lowered herself on to me slowly, drawing out that first heavenly sensation of burying myself deep inside her body. Our eyes stayed locked on one another. Her face contorted with pleasure as she sunk unto me, consuming me. A low, guttural moan slipped through both of our lips. I ran my palms along the outside of her thighs, and then held on to her ass, holding her on me for a moment before I allowed her to move. I just needed a second to feel her.

"Edward," she moaned, her eyes releasing mine as they lolled back into her head. I craved more contact, more of her skin against mine. I wrapped my arms around her back and used her to pull myself up to a sitting position, cradling her against my chest. She moved her legs to wrap them behind my back, holding me as tightly to her as she could while she slowly began rocking against me.

The position was so intimate. So close. So emotional. Our hot, rapid breath swam together. Our skin melded, our centers were joined, and her hair stuck to the beads of sweat that dripped down my forehead. Her nipples ghosted across my chest with every movement. I saw her soul through her eyes as I moved inside of her. This was how best friends made love.

"Edward…oh, Edward…" she whimpered my name in a steady, emotion-filled string, breaking it only to moan or sigh into my shoulder as I held her close.

"I love you," I panted into her ear, lifting and settling her on me in smooth, practiced manoeuvres.

The words had been said many times over, and we meant them every time. Bella and I had always loved each another. But that moment… That moment of emotional and sensational euphoria, was the most intense we had ever experienced saying those words. Millimetres from one another's face, lips, eyes... The definition of coupled.

Each molecule of love and devotion that we shared flowed freely between us, connecting us and nourishing us. It hummed and vibrated. It dominated and clenched us in its grips. It united us as we made love – pouring everything we had into one another without thought or abandon. We just gave. We surrendered ourselves over to the love that was so much larger and more powerful than us. Something that we could not yet understand or explain, we could only feel and cherish. We gave to each other, and we gave everything we had.

Bella pressed her sticky forehead against mine. Tears welled in both of our eyes as she whispered again that she loved me. I laced my arms around her, my fingers digging into her back as her heels squeezed against mine, successfully extinguishing every ounce of space that may have remained between us.

Her arms locked down and her body quivered as she moaned and shuddered, her insides clenching tight around me and spurring my own climax. She sailed out the last wave of hers just as mine began. I held her tight as the burning heat balled and then fragmented inside my belly. It propelled through my limbs and up my spine. It gripped my heart and claimed every fibre of existence. I held Bella tight against me, spilling into her and groaning out her name loudly as I came. Just as the final wave was releasing me, I whispered how much I loved her in her ear, stroking her sweat-dampened hair and placing sweet kisses at the shell of her ear.

Surprisingly, in that moment, I felt her tighten again as she mewled and whimpered into my shoulder. My words pushing her into another orgasm. She lifted her head and looked into my eyes, wild and drowning. I stared, long and hard. I memorized and I worshipped.

I loved her.

* * *

*lights cigarette*

*gags and sputters*

Oh yeah, I don't smoke...hmm...just seemed fitting, no?

More good things await us, erm, _them_, in Tempe.

THANKS!

*blows kisses*

Air

~xox~


	13. It Happened One Night

Well, well, well...

*shameface*

I apologise for the delay... I was trying to complete all of the "Tempe" chapters before updating any of them to ensure there will be no continuity issues.

THE GOOD NEWS: I will update all three of the remaining Tempe chaps back-to-back...

Am I forgiven?

*begs*

I love you, I worship your reviews!!!

Enjoy...

* * *

We were literally fused together –physically joined, sticky with sweat, her hair caked to my shoulder and neck, and our legs in a tangled mess. We collapsed against the damp sheets and pillow, in a messy, happy ball of flesh and love, while the late-afternoon sunlight receded through the window above the bed. The purple curtains dimmed the already muted room and we held one another like our lives depended on it.

_They do, _I couldn't help but noting silently as our breathing evened out, eyes closed, fingers fluttering leisurely along each other's sticky skin. Bella was my life support, my past, my future, and my everything. Inside her little body, she housed everything that constituted who I was as a human being. My heart, my soul, and every morsel of love I had ever felt and given her. She had my bare spirit cradled in her nurturing palms. She carried me with her everywhere she went. I was utterly and completely hers.

_She owns me._

I would never have it any other way. I wanted to be a part of Bella forever, as I knew she would be a part of me.

I pressed my lips to her forehead, eyes closed, basking in the warmth of her body draped over and twisted in mine. Her chest rose and fell with her peaceful, steady breath, billowing in sweet waves against my cheek. Her head lay against the pillow next to mine and we faced each other, sharing it. She murmured something softly and gripped her fingers tighter around my arm, drained from the afternoon's excitement and activities, drifting off to sleep. My heart swelled with love as I lay and memorized her eyelashes where they lay flat against her cheekbone and the smattering of freckles that were barely ever visible across the bridge of her nose and that dusted the apples of her little cheeks. The Arizona sun brought them out more. The corners of her mouth twitched as she coasted peacefully in her dream. I traced my eyes along the shape of her hairline across her forehead, and down her nose, over her lips and chin, then I bent down again and placed another soft kiss, lightly to not disturb her slumbering. I ran my fingertips down the gentle arc of her ribs, to her waist, and over her hipbone, and then carefully lifted her away from me an inch so I could pull out of her and settle her against me again, while gathering the sheets to pull over us so she wouldn't catch a chill.

Her little hand lay against my chest, her fingers wiggling occasionally, tickling the bare skin beneath them. I was sleepy and drifting with her. I moved my hand up to cradle her twitching fingers. I opened my eyes just slightly and peered down at her little hand in mine. It was her left hand. Her fingers were long and elegant, beautiful and natural. It was ironic because those little fingers were probably the only thing about Bella that could ever rightfully be referred to as graceful. I cherished her, but grace was not her forte. I smiled at the thought as it scampered lazily through my sleepy mind. My cheek raised and brushed hers, sending a wave of the familiar electricity through me at the minor and unexpected contact. I floated away to sleep peacefully and merrily, holding Bella's hand against my bare chest, cradling her in bed and thinking that one day I would hold her just like that, only in a different bed, preferably a slightly larger one, and look down to see more than just bare fingers.

Someday…

Then I floated away into my dreams alongside my best friend.

I woke several hours later to the usual "near-campus" sounds of kids shouting after one another and a horn wailing repeatedly outside the window. All the light had left the room and it was silent inside except for the faint sound of Bella's breathing. I stretched and scrubbed my eyes, groaning as I squirmed beneath Bella. She stirred with my movement and slowly her eyes blinked up at me, adjusting to the dark room. Then the brightest, warmest, most beautiful sight I will ever lay my eyes on beamed up at me. Her smile was capable of lifting weight off my soul. I smiled back, blinking sleepily, and kissed the tip of her nose.

She shuffled the leg that was draped across my thighs and wiggled herself so that she was sitting on my lap, pressed against me, but still laying against my chest looking up at me grinning like the happy kid that she was. I stroked her hair but remained silent. It was a quiet, happy moment in the dark little room, with nothing but a few rays of moonlight faintly outlining our features. She brought her little fingertips up to my cheek and dragged them down the side of my face, over my jaw and then brought them to my lips. She lightly traced their outline and then left them pressed against my lips. Underneath her fingertips, I smiled and kissed the soft pads, my eyes twinkling into hers.

I reached my hand up and laced my fingers around her delicate wrist, bringing it down to my side but not relinquishing it. I brought my other hand to cradle the side of her face and I leaned up the inch it took to brush my lips against hers. I kissed her softly, tenderly, intimately…in a practised way that only I could. I swept my tongue – warm, wet, and inviting – across her lower lip, drawing it into my mouth and gliding my palm from her cheek, down her neck and over her shoulder. It ghosted down her arm, across her ribs and waist, and then finally settled on her hip. With one large hand, I gripped and lifted her, using my knee to counter her weight, and shifted her gently onto me, our eyes glued on one another while we kissed.

As she sunk onto me, our eyes twitched and tightened around the edges, whimpers escaping through our lips. And we made love. Silently. Loudly. Delicately. Powerfully. No sounds filled the air except those from our lovemaking – the sweet, symphonic combination of moans, laboured breath, and cries.

When we finished, we decided a shower was definitely in order before we did anything else. We showered together, playing in the water and with each other, laughter bouncing off the tiles and echoing beautifully in the room. We got dressed quickly and left the little apartment behind to go for a walk and to hunt down some dinner.

It was pretty late, but as is always the case with college towns and the businesses surrounding campus, everything was always open until the wee morning hours. Thus, we found ourselves in a little cake shop that was on the same block as Bella's apartment building. The shop had three walls wrapped in a huge, U-shaped, glass display housing every type cake imaginable. There were large stone fireplaces in the corners and jazz music flitting through the air. A haphazard array of leather and crushed velvet couches and club chairs littered the seating area between the two massive fireplaces with coffee tables strewn between them.

We circled around the room, highlighting to one another the different kinds of cakes that sounded good. Bella eyed the chocolate, cherry truffle cake with wide, frenzied eyes and a huge grin…until I met her eyes and shook my head at her, chuckling and muttering under my breath.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"Nothing, just...I don't really feel like having a headache from eating that much chocolate, thank you," I joked with wide, reproachful eyes.

"Well, I didn't say that _you_ had to order it, did I?" she huffed, crossing her arms across her chest and glowering at me, her eyes darting back and forth between me and the chocolate overkill behind the glass.

I smiled and sauntered up to her, running my palms down the sides of her face and over her hair. I kissed the tip of her nose. "We both know you will take three bites and then switch with me." I planted a kiss atop her head and turned back to the glass cases, grabbing her little hand that was clenched into a mock-outraged fist and held it gently in mine.

"Fine. Since you know me so well, what cake would I like then?" she challenged, brows raised at me in defiance.

"Hmm…" I took the test quite seriously. I scanned the cakes, reading the little card in front of them. There were over thirty different cakes, a dozen in each case. They were huge, layered masterpieces – extravagant and decadent. I walked slowly along the perimeter of the room, taking my time in deciding what Bella would like while the shopkeeper smiled amusingly at our display. He was a middle-aged, fatherly-looking man with flour in his hair and a warm smile. Having made my decision I went over to him to place our orders.

"Hi," I smiled at him.

"Hello there. You kids ready?" he smiled, looking between Bella and me with a glint in his eye. Bella was smirking at him from the counter adjacent to us.

"Yes, please," I said, grinning back over my shoulder to Bella. She nodded with her hands on her hips, clearly amused and anxious to see what she would be getting. "I'd like the Old Fashioned Carrot Cake please. And can she have a piece of the Vanilla Cinnamon Mousse." I glanced over at Bella – her brows were furrowed at me.

The clerk chuckled. "It took you fifteen minutes to decide on the same cake you get every time you come in, Bella?" He laughed heartily at her and she huffed and flopped down into a couch, a mixture of impressed, amused, and reprimanding. I smiled in victory, collected our lattes once they were made, and took my seat next to Bella on the leather couch directly in front of a fire, waiting for our cake to come. She was pouting and pretending not to speak to me, sipping her coffee and looking in the opposite direction. I chuckled under my breath and put my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into me whether she wanted to lie against me or not. She peeked at me out of the corner of her eye, a pout still on her lips, but they twitched with suppressed smiles. I kissed them as the fought to remain indignant at me and the man placed our cakes in front of us silently, with a large grin on his face, and then walked away.

I bent down and grabbed the plates and leaned back into the couch, placing Bella's on her lap, all the while grinning profusely at her.

I took a bite of the cake, which was fucking delicious, then turned to her as she shoved a big bite into her mouth, smiling around the sides of the fork.

"So if you always get this flavour? Then why the sudden interest in the triple-chocolate disaster over there?" I asked, nodding at the glass cases behind us.

She blushed. I wondered what the hell it was about cake that could make her embarrassed. I quirked an eyebrow at her and narrowed my eyes. She ignored me and shoved another bite into her mouth, reaching for her latte.

"Bella?" I encouraged.

She looked up, swallowing and brought her latte to her lips, gazing at me over the top of the mug while she sipped from it. She set it back down on the coffee table and sat back into the couch, pulling her legs up and curling them underneath her. She looked at me timidly.

"I really like chocolate," she whispered.

I snorted. "Yes, I'm aware."

"Yeah, except that I can't eat that much of it, so I'm not going to waste ten dollars on a chocolate piece of cake that I won't finish. Or ice cream for that matter," she added, looking down at her lap and her vanilla cake, a soft smile on her lips and her blush creeping across her cheeks. "But I know that when you are around I can order it and have a few bites and that you will finish it for me so I don't have to waste it. I only ever have chocolate when you're around."

Bella continued to stare at her lap. I don't know why, I couldn't rationalize it, but her sad little story about chocolate somehow made me want to cry. My heart clenched and my eyes pricked. I bent down, sat both of our cakes on the table, and pulled her closer, forcing her to look up at me.

"I love you," I whispered. "You should have gotten the chocolate." I combed my fingers through her hair and smiled down at her.

She looked up at me sheepishly through her lashes and blinked several slow and deliberate times before speaking. "I didn't know it gave you a headache," she murmured in a quiet, tight voice. "You never told me that."

I chuckled at her. "It's not that big of a deal, Bella." I kissed her and smiled at her.

"Yes it is," she whined. "All these years you have been eating my leftover chocolate and getting headaches from it and I didn't even know. That is big deal to me."

"Well, not to me, so don't worry about it, please."

She sniffled and grabbed her plate, forcing a bite into her mouth and chewing laboriously. I smiled encouragingly at her and continued to hold her against me for a few more moments. Then, over our heads from behind the back of the couch, an arm reach down and plopped a small to-go container with a half piece of the Chocolate Cherry Truffle Cake in Bella's lap. She turned around, startled and delighted. The shop clerk winked at us then went back to his place behind the counter, and continued shutting down one of his cash registers for the night.

I beamed at her, happy she got her chocolate cake after all. She smiled up at me, still looking sheepish, which was absurd, it was just me. And I would continue to take the headaches if it made her that noticeably happy to have her few bites of chocolate death on a plate. I smirked at her contentedly.

"So, two pieces of cake and some coffee…this is the proper dinner that I was promised?" she asked, holding the to-go container open above her vanilla cake and diving her fork into the chocolate piece excitedly.

I was horrified. She was right.

"Shit, Bella. So far today you have had too much fucking coffee, half a yogurt, and some cake. Dammit." I muttered, cursing myself, my thoughts spinning wildly, trying to figure out the best way to get her something more substantial.

"And a lot of sex," she muttered, shoving a big piece of chocolate cake into her mouth. "Don't forget about the sex." She grinned with her lips tightly pressed together as she chewed, her eyes dancing salaciously at me.

"Oh, I wouldn't forget about the sex," I whispered, a large smile on my face, my eyes meeting and holding hers.

We ate the rest of our cake while making happy conversation, and then left an hour later, hand in hand. In my other hand I held a to-go container with a half a piece of vanilla cake in it.

When we arrived back at the apartment, we got comfortable, dragged some blankets downstairs to the couch and curled up with a movie and our leftover cake, sharing it and a fork. Twenty-six minutes into the movie, three minutes after the cake was finished, and twelve seconds after our last kiss, we were both sound asleep. It had been a very long, very enjoyable, yet tiring day.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I carried Bella upstairs, and crawled under the blankets and curled myself close to her. I was crammed and utterly content in her tiny twin bed.

I woke up before Bella, the entire left side of my body tingling and sore and my right leg hanging over the edge of the bed with my foot on the floor. I had to get out of that bed, it was killing me, even despite the beautiful warmth of Bella's body wrapped around mine. I was wide awake and going to go berserk if I remained in that position any longer. I slowly rolled away from Bella, pulling my arm gently out from under the dead weight of her slumbering, little head. She murmured and groaned but stayed asleep. I smiled down at her, pulled the curtains shut more tightly so the sun would not wake her, kissed her cheek, and secured the covers around her shoulders. I quietly tiptoed my way to the bathroom, grabbing my bag on my way.

I showered, got dressed and ready for the day, and then slipped back into Bella's bedroom to throw my bag in the corner of her room. She was still sound asleep, though she had obviously squirmed around a lot since I was in the bathroom. The blankets were a tangled heap around her and her tee shirt was all bunched around her ribs, while her hair lay tangled and disastrous across her pillow. She was sleeping though, so I snuck back out and went downstairs to raid the kitchen.

In addition to the array of cereal, there was not a whole lot in terms of breakfast foods. I wanted to make Bella something decent to compensate for my total failure at feeding her properly the night before. Unfortunately, there was nothing but quick breakfast foods; granola bars, yogurt, oatmeal, English muffins, and some packets of instant breakfast…seriously those girls ate miserably. Granted all I ever ate was bagels, take-out, and anything that could be zapped in a microwave so…I really had no room to talk. However, I still preferred her to eat better; she seemed more fragile than I did somehow.

On further inspection, I found a carton of eggs, and some vegetables at the bottom of the fridge. I turned back to the little spice rack on the counter near the stove and swirled it around, seeing what was there. Deciding I had everything I needed to make eggs Florentine I started grabbing things and getting to work quietly, so as to not wake her before everything was ready. While I rarely took advantage of the fact that my mother had spent countless hours in the kitchen narrating everything she did all the time trying to impress upon us all an idea of how to cook well, I was always grateful for her wisdom when I needed it. Like when I wanted to make a nice breakfast for my still slumbering girlfriend and surprise her with it.

I set the temperature on the oven, cooked the spinach up, set it aside to cool, and then rinsed out the pan and added the cream and parmesan cheese along with the proper spices to make the Moray sauce. While it was simmering, I scrounged through her bottom cupboards looking for a casserole dish of some sort, trying to remain quiet. Once I unearthed one, I went about arranging the spinach, broke and poured in the eggs, and then placed the dish in the oven. Once everything was ready, I poured out some apple juice and made some coffee in her little single serving coffee dispenser. I set everything out on the little yellow table and went upstairs to retrieve her.

I stood in her open doorway for a few minutes observing her as she slept. When Bella was in bed by herself, she was the opposite of a peacefully sleeping person. She tossed and writhed, she bunched sheets and pillows around her, groaned and grumbled and got tangled in her mop of hair. She was very entertaining. Fortunately for me, when we shared a bed she always laid perfectly still, draped pleasantly across me and curled into my arms. She never moved unless it was intentional. The significance of that was not lost on me. I brought Bella a sense of comfort and peace.

I laughed quietly as I approached, wondering how the hell she managed to tame the tangles out of her hair every morning, and crawled up onto the edge of the bed next to her. I swept the hair off her cheek and tucked it gently over her shoulder. She was on her stomach, her arms outstretched and her face buried into the pillow we had shared all night. Rather, that I had used, while she used my chest as a cushion.

I nudged her shoulder softly, calling to her. She grumbled and tried to roll over but then must have remembered that I was there and I was the one waking her, because her eyes shot open and she flipped over toward me with a huge smile on her face. I smiled and wished her a good morning.

"You're really here, it wasn't a dream," she squealed excitedly. "And you are showered and dressed while I am still in bed sleeping in, what the hell Edward why didn't you wake me up." She was mad and frantically trying to look past me to see the time. It wasn't _that _late.

"I am waking you up," I smirked at her. "Besides, I'm kind of still on New York time, so it's like noon to me, so… Come downstairs, I made breakfast." I smiled, pretty proud of myself.

She laughed at me and hit me with a pillow, trying to dislodge the goofy grin I wore. Not a chance…I would have this grin for another three days, it wasn't going anywhere. I bent to kiss her and she shrieked and jumped off the bed yelling something about having to brush her teeth first. I rolled my eyes and went downstairs to wait for her.

Bella came down, still in her pyjama shorts and tee shirt, but she had pulled her crazy hair back into a ponytail. She sat down at the table and gaped at me with wide eyes.

"What? It's not like eggs are very difficult to cook." I tried to be modest, but I was dying to dive in to the breakfast, it smelled delicious and I was famished.

She gestured to the spread of English muffins, eggs, Moray sauce, juice and coffee. "This is a bit more than eggs. Someone still feels bad about treating me to cake for dinner?" she giggled, cutting off a big piece of the egg and shoving it into her mouth, moaning appreciatively. I made a mental note to cook more if she was going to moan like that every time she took a bite.

I stabbed my own eggs with a fork and eyed her, waiting for her to swallow; I could tell she had more to say.

"Besides, it's my city, I should be the one taking you out," she finished, taking another bite and nodding at me to indicate she was thoroughly enjoying the breakfast.

I smiled. "So then what's on the agenda for today?" I asked. "If there's anything you need to do for school or whatever, Bella, you better do it. Don't let me get in the way."

"Seriously, you're such a bother," she joked, rolling her eyes at me and biting on her lip, smirking at me.

We sat on either side of one of the table corners. I reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezed in jest, then held onto it because I like the feeling of sitting at a kitchen table by ourselves laughing and eating breakfast together first thing in the morning. We talked and ate and planned the day, which is to say that Bella made a series of excited gestures and squeals every time she thought of places to go and things to do with me, yet refused to share each time she did. So I gave up asking and just ate and then cleaned up afterward while she ran upstairs to get ready.

She came downstairs just as I was finishing up, grabbed her keys of the top of the TV where she left them last night, and ushered me out the door, a big smile on her face.

We spent the day roaming through campus, in and out of little shops nearby. We toured the university art gallery so she could show me the few oil paintings in the corner that her roommate had worked on with a group of other students portraying scenes from the recent FestDevil. It was a big, annual event and which was the topic of Bella's editorial that kept her behind over the weekend. I read the little framed cards next to the paintings, learning about the history and significance of the event, then stared at the paintings and photographs in the little corner of the airy gallery with a combination of disdain and gratefulness. After all, it was that damn event that made Bella stay in Arizona, but also that forced me to come to her, and have what was shaping up to be the most enjoyable and carefree weekend of my life. I pulled Bella close to me and placed a sweet kiss at her temple, breathing in her comforting scent and relishing in her proximity.

After the gallery, we went to the café on campus that I surprised her at. We ordered coffee and sandwiches while the barista eyed us, remembering the passionate display from the day before. Bella's cheeks flamed as I handed her two cups of coffee and nodded for her to go sit down while I paid and waited for our lunch.

While we sat, we discussed everything from school, to family, and how much it sucked being away from them – all the while we danced around the topic of being apart from one another. Then we safely settled on discussing where the now notorious "proper dinner" should take place that night.

Bella rattled off a few suggestions, all sounded generic and mainstream. I prodded at her and threatened to Google local restaurants on my cell if she didn't fork over a better option – something nicer. She scowled at me but relinquished the name, Casey Moore's Oyster House. She said it was small, brimming with atmosphere and a place all the locals love because upstairs is a fine dining menu but downstairs is a chill little Irish pub that is always crowded and lively. I smiled, it sounded perfect. I thanked her, winking dramatically just for fun, and she muttered something about me being an idiot and that it was too expensive and she was perfectly fine with pizza.

"Don't worry, if it makes you feel any better," I began in a low, textured tone, with a wicked glint in my eye, "I have every intention of making you pay me back." I winked at her suggestively and she nearly shot coffee across the room, clasping her hand over her mouth and gaping at me with huge eyes. I laughed loud and free, both at her expression and at the peace in being able to joke so freely with her over lunch. "What? I'm serious, it's been a really long fucking three months, Bella."

She had her head thrown back against the chair by that point, she shot it up, glared at me, nodded her head in agreement and then finally controlled herself enough to swallow the mouthful of coffee she was holding onto. She laughed and kicked me in the shin.

_It had been though…_

We took our time walking back, hand in hand along the main street across from campus toward Bella's apartment, and she pointed funny memories and items out to me. As we passed by a typical tattoo shop that looked exactly like every other tattoo shop that is always situated next to every university across the country, with generic flowers, Chinese characters and tribal designs on a board in the window, Bella smiled and pulled on my hand to stop me. She looked at the window then back to me.

"Did you know that this time last year I was debating getting a tattoo," she looked back that the shop with a scrunched face that indicated she was glad she decided against it. I scoffed, slightly horrified at the idea.

"Uhm, really? That doesn't sound like you at all, Bella," I said, looking down at her, still holding her hand. Skeptical that she was serious. I couldn't even imagine Bella getting inked. I cringed inwardly at the mere idea of her in any kind of pain.

She looked back to me, a heavy expression weighing down her features and her eyes that I didn't yet appreciate, but I was about to.

"It wasn't. I wasn't myself, really," she paused for a moment and swallowed thickly, dragging the toe of her tennis shoe along the sidewalk, watching it with trained eyes as she avoided me. Then she took a deep, shaky breath and looked up at me through her eyelashes, a soft, sad smile on her lips. "How could I possibly have been myself when I was missing the best part of me? You have no idea how lost I was."

I leaned down and wove my fingers behind her neck and into her hair, pulling her to me for a kiss. It was deep and long, and when we finally separated, I lingered against her lips, holding her to me with my hand still at the back of her neck, refusing to let go just yet. "I know what you mean," I whispered against her, my lips brushing against hers as I spoke.

It was the truth; I knew all too well what she meant. The couple of years that we spent apart I felt utterly detached to reality in any way. I barely recognised myself. I isolated myself from family, home, and any semblance of the person I had always been, and always wanted to be. I had no drive and no fire. Bella had always been my inspiration. She was everything that flamed and thrived inside of me. When we were separated, not just by distance but spiritually separated, I felt empty and lifeless. Every day was a challenge to get through.

We walked in silence the rest of the way back to Bella's apartment, both lost in the myriad of our own thoughts, no doubt separately recalling our own individual hell in surviving through that time in our lives. I chanced a few glances at Bella's as we walked out of the side of my eye and wondered how much overlap there was in our thoughts. If she had just as much guilt as I carried, and the regret and determination to never go through that again.

Just before Bella put her key in the door, I reached out and wrapped my fingers around her hips, spinning her toward me and pressing her up against the door, driving myself against her and gripping her face firmly in my hands as I kissed her. I ran the tip of my tongue across the underside of her top lip, wanting her to part her lips further and let me in. She moaned and tilted her head back into my hands, allowing the kiss to deepen and strengthen. I kissed her fervently until, behind the black backdrop of my eyelids, small white burst of light the size of pinholes began to sparkle in my vision and I realised I needed air. I lifted my lips from hers and rest my forehead against hers, panting and feeling Bella's chest heave against mine as she did the same. My fingers toyed with the hair that was thread among them, tickling the skin in between my fingers and getting tangled as I continued to grip it firmly. I pulled just enough to angle her head off to the side and dropped my lips to the sweet little divot where her neck meets her shoulder, where her pulse raced beneath the skin's thin surface, pounding against my lips as I continued to excite her. I nuzzled at her with my nose and slid my tongue, flat, warm, and wet, along the side of her neck, carefully breathing in firm breaths against the wet skin and noting as the goose bumps that I was intentionally eliciting indeed rose beneath my touch.

Bella shuddered, and at our feet, I heard the clank of metal hitting the concrete walkway. I figured that was a sign that we should get inside. I bent down to grab her house keys, dragging my palms exaggeratedly along her body as I bent to my knees in front of her. I looked up at her as I reached for the keys, her head was still tossed back against the door and her breathing was erratic. She held her lip prisoner in between her teeth. In truth, I had just been screwing with her, we didn't have time for anything since I had called ahead to make a reservation at Casey Moore's upstairs and we had to leave soon if we wanted to be on time.

Which at that moment I couldn't have given a fuck less about the time, because what had started with just me teasing Bella, reassuring us both with some passion, had quickly become a need more real than food, time, or even breathing apparently.

I stood slowly and jingled the keys in the air in front of Bella's face, my eyes narrowed on hers. My dick was pleading with me to make it a priority over manners and risk being late in order to satisfy other needs first.

Bella snatched the keys from my fingers, spun toward the door and stuck the key in. Her body was still pressed against mine, her little ass pushing back into my erection as she turned the doorknob.

We were going to be late.

We were twenty minutes late. All in all…impressive given that we had made love on the stairs, in the hallway, and then again a separate time in the shower when Bella demanded more out of me. Once at the restaurant, we were seated promptly, the hostess managing to sneak in a not-so innocent comment about how they were full that night and just about to give up our table. I led Bella behind the hostess with my fingers against her hip that was furthest from me, my arm grazing her back. I felt her shake with suppressed giggles at the hostess's snide comment about our tardiness. She had no idea how thoroughly neither of us gave a damn about being late. It was purely out of my guilt for allowing Bella to only have cake for dinner the night before, and to give my exhausted-but-always-game dick a chance to recover that we even made it out the door at all.

Still, as we climbed the stairs and the soft piano music filled the air, the downstairs still quiet in the early hour, and I watched Bella's body sway with each step she took in the short lacy black dress she wore, I was grateful we had come. Bella deserved a beautiful and romantic date night out. Not to mention that I was thoroughly appreciative of my view as her hips and the way they moved as she climbed the stairs. The top of her dress had barely-there, thin straps that lay perfectly over her shoulder and was covered in a sheer layer of lace that stretched across her back and chest, giving the illusion that the dress was much more modest than it genuinely was, given that the fabric was utterly see-through. It was a short dress, falling just inches below her ass and flaring out from the underneath layers of tulle. I was equally grateful for that dress.

She wore an equally sexy pair of black heels that I knew she barely ever wore because they were excessively expensive and way too high for her to feel secure walking in them. However, she knew how much I loved her in them – she had winked at me as she slipped them on just before we left the apartment. I was pretty sure we would be going for another round as soon as we got back, she was obviously hell-bent on draining me completely before sending me back to New York to bear the cold nights alone again. I was more than willing to oblige.

As promised, the food was amazing, the atmosphere was wonderful, the wine was divine, and the company was flawless. By the time the waitress offered dessert both Bella and I were half drunk and stuffed to the brim. I thanked her, but declined and indicated that we were finished. Bella smirked at me as she finished off her martini – a thick and sugary concoction that made my head hurt just looking at it. She was positively radiant; her cheeks glowing in that slightly intoxicated way.

I held her hand carefully as we made our way down the stairs and through the much rowdier bar below. Once the evening wore on the main floor became crowed with people and the Irish music filled the air. As it was, people were crammed shoulder to shoulder. It was stuffy, warm, and loud and we both looked at each other with eyes that said we needed to get out of there. Once we were safely back on the front porch of the building that was an old converted home, the fresh, mild air welcomed us. We walked along the path and back to the main road that led home, leaving the thumping music and loud laughter from the outdoor tables behind us as we walked. It was Saturday night and there were college students everywhere; in all the cafés and bistros, walking along the sidewalk, littering the campus lawns that were to the left of us, everyone out enjoying the clear winter night.

"This really isn't fair, you know?" I whined, noting that barely anyone we passed had jackets on even though it was eleven at night, including Bella. "Are you cold at all?"

"Nope," she smirked over at me.

"New York is probably covered in snow as we speak."

"Sorry about your luck, maybe you should have been more open to the consideration of a southern school," she joked.

"Maybe," I murmured, meaning something else entirely.

After a few minutes of silence that I was pretty sure Bella was spending contemplating what I meant by my last comment, she eventually retired her thoughts and moved on.

"Hey, let's not waste the good weather then, right?" She looked at me, nodding along with her own suggestion as she spoke. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the curb, looked both ways and then dragged me across the street toward campus. She smirked at me as she walked through the cobblestone pathways, leading me, holding my hand in her tiny fingers and balancing on her ridiculous, yet dead sexy, heels. I smiled at her back and enjoyed the sight of the way her muscles flexed and waned beneath the skin of her calves in order to keep her walking steady.

We wove between some buildings and into a courtyard of some sort nestled between a quad of buildings. As we approached there was an increasingly louder hum of voices as we neared the end of the path and rounded the corner that would open into the main courtyard. When we did I saw a huge projection screen and a mix of loose chairs interspersed with the picnic tables that were already a fixture in the courtyard. There was an impressive outdoor sound system hooked up and students strewn about the place in small clusters or couples watching the screen with snacks and drinks in their laps.

"What is this?" I whispered in Bella's ear as we climbed up onto the top of a concrete picnic table. The surface was chilled so I lay my jacket over the top so Bella could sit on it and not have her bare thighs against the cold concrete.

"Every other Saturday the IT club and the drama department get together and sponsor a movie screening. I just remembered that it should be running this week. Cool right?" She looked over at me, excitedly, and I had to admit, it was pretty cool. Columbia had some cool events that it put on occasionally, and hipster clubs and things, but it was far too pretentious of a school to do the basic cool shit that a place like ASU and most universities would do - like run a movie in the middle of the night in an outdoor courtyard. Not to mention that anyone who would actually show up to the hypothetical movie would freeze to death before the end credits.

As it was, it was pretty warm curled up with Bella on the top of the picnic table at the back of the courtyard. The movie played before us, an old black and white favourite of Bella's called _It Happened One Night _with Clark Gable. It was already halfway through its running, but it made no difference, even if we hadn't seen it a hundred times already, it was still a brilliant idea. We snuggled together watching, my arm around her and the lights from the movie flickering around us. Eventually Bella curled up and lay her head in my lap, her hand resting against my thigh and beneath her cheek. I ran my fingers through her hair and she reached over and slipped her heels off, setting them on the bench of the table and laying back against me again. I continued my fingers through her hair in long, slow strokes, and each time I looked down at her, her little eyes looked heavier and heavier. By the time the credits began drifting across the screen one name at a time the way old movies used to do it; Bella was sound asleep in my lap.

People stood and stretched all around us, their voices rising above their previous whispers, while the IT kids started disassembling everything and loading it onto long black dollies that were waiting behind the screen. Bella's eyes opened as she yawned and smiled up at me, blinking slowly, clawing her way from the fog of sleep. She sat up and I jumped down from the table. I pulled my jacket out from under her, then draped it over her shoulders and curled my fingers into the backs of her shoes, carrying them for her. I turned my back to her and offered it to her for a piggyback ride back to her apartment. We were only across the street and down one block, I was pretty sure I could manage to carry her that far in order to keep her from stumbling sleepily in heels that I was certain the designer had not intended any human being to attempt actually walking in them.

She smiled at me and giggled, climbing onto my back and wrapping her legs tight around my waist. We talked about the movie and how cool university life could be sometimes as we made our way back. Bella laid her cheek against the back of my shoulder, holding on firmly with her legs and one arm. Her other hand stroked her fingers up and down my arm and toyed with my hair. Her little fingers always felt so delicious dragging along my scalp and rummaging through my hair. It sent simultaneous chills down my spine and ripples of liquid warmth back up. My eyes may have been rolling back in my head just slightly as we walked and I practically purred under her languid touch.

When we got back to the apartment, we quickly shed most of our clothes once in her dark bedroom, tossing shoes into corners and leaving piles of clothing in the middle of the floor, until we were both in our underwear. We fell into bed, tangled into one another, kissing happily and lazily. We pulled the sheets up around us and quickly fell into a deep sleep within minutes with sweet smiles painted on our contented faces.

Everything was exactly as it should be.

* * *

Let me know what you think of the way the weekend is shaping up... lost more fun in TEMPE to come!!!

Love you all!

Air

~xox~


	14. Promises and Other Things

Holy hell!!

Sorry for the evil delay when I totally promised you this would be updated a few days ago...

This chapter ended up being 34 pages long...that's inasanity. I had split it up...which created all kinds of issues.

Please remember this when I leave you were I leave you... THIRTY FOUR MF PAGES!!!

Hahaha... it had to happen... I apologise in advance.

*hides*

Run along now. I love you all dearly...you have no idea!

xox

* * *

I had to have been dreaming. Everything was black. Everything was warm. Everything was amazing. Nothing in reality could ever feel that good. My hips shifted against the sensations.

I had to be dreaming. It made sense – I was pretty sure the last thing I remembered was bring really tired.

However, I was incapable of thinking too far beyond the waves of pleasure that rippled through me. My eyes were heavy and I was drowning beneath the murk of sleep and satisfaction as they swam together in me.

There was a loud groan that echoed in the dark silence. It was me. I won the battle with my eyelids, but only for a moment. It was just long enough to see a quick image of the top of Bella's head hovering over my thighs.

_Holy fuck._

My fingers twitched by my side, longing to reach up and stroke her hair, or knead her shoulder, or just feel her skin beneath my fingertips. But they were too heavy and I was too content to force my arm to move. My eyes rolled back into my skull and the darkness quaked all around me as I came. Then I drifted back to wherever it was that I had been before the pleasure…

When I awoke again Bella was tangled around me, her hair tickled at my nose. I brushed it back and peered down at her. Odd flickers of her danced through my mind. I rubbed my eyes and scrubbed away the last shreds of the blissful sleep I had been in and tried to get a grip on what my mind was remembering.

Either I had the most intense wet dream of my fucking life... or Bella blew me in the middle of the night. My eyes widened at the realisation and then I recoiled quickly as the early morning sun assaulted them. I flinched back and rolled into the pillow, burying my face away from the light. Beside me, Bella moaned, squirmed, and rolled over to her other side to get away from me as I wiggled and threatened to wake her. Her ass rubbed against my dick in a highly alluring manner. I blindly slid my fingertips down her side, running them over the skin and lace as they skated across her bra and then the sides of her panties. So… _she_ was exactly as I left her last night. I reached down and adjusted myself as I reacted instinctually to Bella's ass wiggling against me.

I noted the thin layer of cotton I wore that separated me from Bella. Her hand surprised me as it reached back and grabbed mine, dragging it over her hip and nestling it against her torso, wanting me to hold her. I nuzzled my face deep against the back of her neck and into her hair, pulling her tight against me. I saw the apple of her cheek raise as she smiled in response. I pressed my lips to the top of her bare shoulder.

"Good morning, love. I'd ask how you slept, but I think I already know the answer to that," I whispered against her neck, my thumb ghosting soft circles against her stomach.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about," she whispered back, but the quick little shudders of laughter that caused her to shake against me told me all I needed to know.

"What was that all about?" I asked.

"Are you complaining?"

_No!_

"Absolutely not. Just curious."

"I couldn't sleep."

I snorted in her ear.

"What?" she snapped defensively, glaring at me over her shoulder.

"You couldn't sleep so you decided to blow me!" I laughed loudly. She rolled toward me to scowl in my direction more efficiently. Her little face was all scrunched up in disapproval; it was having the opposite effect she intended. I thought she looked cute. "I'm just saying…I like your style Swan."

I couldn't help the laughter bubbling out of me. It was the most ludicrous thing I had ever heard.

"I just couldn't shut my mind off is all. And I was laying here thinking to myself while you snored away next to me. So, I just started running my fingers through your hair innocently while I thought. But then you kept groaning and smiling in your sleep every time I touched you. It was cute… and sexy. And I guess one thing kind of just led to another, you know how that goes... You didn't seem to mind last night." She peered across the pillow at me with an odd glint in her eyes.

"I don't mind now," I was quick to highlight. I didn't want her to think I was opposed to spontaneous blowjobs for fuck's sake. But there was something lurking in her tone that bothered me. "What was going on in your head that you couldn't turn off?"

I combed my fingers through her hair and kissed the tip of her nose while I waited for her to answer. I was worried about what could be so troubling that it had her up at night even while I lay next to her; usually my proximity alone was enough to lull her into a soothing slumber. Not to mention that it wasn't like Bella not to be upfront with me about something that was upsetting her. The only time that we had ever allowed any space between us, it had multiplied until we were both too far away from one other that we couldn't find our way back. I would be damned if I would ever let anything like that happen again.

Bella thought silently and chewed on her lip while I waited, growing more and more anxious with each second. I swear the second hand on the little clock about her bed was taunting me – it was so loud and I didn't remember noticing it before. And as I did my usual fucking worst-case-scenario panicking bullshit it dawned on me just how much that woman owned me. In that moment… that moment that I was reduced to a trembling, fearful man…breathing heavily and waiting as she organised her thoughts. She was everything to me and she could easily ruin me with one word.

Done. Over. No. Can't. Won't. Don't. Shouldn't.

If she decided that it was all too difficult for her – too trying on her little heart – it would destroy me. I would do anything to keep her. I would walk away from Columbia, transfer to something closer. I would move, promise, or profess anything she needed to hear. I would beg and cry at her feet before I would ever let her walk away from me again without a fight. She was my entire future and I knew I was nothing without her. I would never again be too proud to admit that.

We were worth fighting for.

"Bella," I said her name, low and stern, both a warning and a plea. "You're making me nervous, love." My voice was tight and my trepidation was evident.

She smiled at me in reassurance. It was soft and pleasant. Her eyes changed, twinkling almost as if she were delighted by my terror.

"I was just thinking…like. I don't know… We're on the same page here, right?" she asked in a small voice that radiated all the anxiety I had felt only a half-second ago. I blew out a breath in relief that she wasn't ending whatever it was that we were.

"Isabella, please… I don't know what this is that you want to call this," I gestured between us as we lay on our sides facing one another, sharing her pillow. "I have personally always felt like we're beyond standard labels…but whatever it is, we are unquestionably in it together. We are on the exact same page. So please, don't scare me like that."

Her eyes were watering up as they examined mine. "Scare you?"

"Yeah, well. I'm confident that we are thinking and feeling the same things, and then you go and act all nervous like that and I start panicking. I'm only human, Bella. And I am completely at your mercy." I propped myself up on an elbow and used my other hand to cradle her face and keep a lock on her eyes as I spoke. "I don't think you quite get how much I need you. I don't even know how to define myself separately from you. You've always been a part of me."

I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers, effectively ending the conversation. Then I made love to her, slowly and tenderly because she needed to feel it. Not just the physical part, but every emotion embedded in us. Every word that I didn't know how to articulate because I was a fucking useless imbecile when it came to communicating some things, as well as every dream I had for us, I used to guide me in bringing Bella to a euphoric climax. Because _that _I knew how to do expertly.

We spent the rest of the morning laying tangled in bed together, and slowly making our way to the bathroom to clean up for the day. It was both familiar and strange how comfortable Bella and I were cohabitating. Everything felt incredibly natural. We talked through the curtain as I showered and she stood at the sink brushing her teeth. It was routine, yet rousing. It was like something we had been doing all our lives…just slightly, _significantly_, different.

Just as I was about to turn the water off, Bella climbed in behind me. I shot her a weary look. I was all for cramming as much sex as humanly possibly into the weekend, but we had literally just finished. She giggled and shook her head at me, shoving me out of the shower and pulling the curtain shut behind me. I both pouted and sighed in relief as I wrapped a towel around my waist and patted barefoot into the bedroom to get dressed.

I saw that I had a missed call on my cell from my dad, but since he didn't leave a message I figured everything was fine. I decided to call him back later when Bella wasn't around.

I lay on the bed, fully dressed and going over a textbook I brought with me while Bella ambled around the room naked getting ready for the day. Admittedly, I had a large smile on my face, my dick was ready for more action, and I had read the same sentence twenty-three times before finally giving up. I slammed the cover shut and threw the small paperback at her, growling as she finished tying the strings of the brown wrap dress she was putting on. She finished getting ready and we left the apartment in search of some much-needed nourishment.

We ended up at a modern internet café a few blocks from campus that probably had the best waffles I had ever sunk my teeth into. It seemed so out of place and I was amazed at how delicious they were. Bella giggled as she watched me wolf them back.

"Jesus, Edward, you would think you haven't eaten in weeks," she laughed, reaching over and wiping some whip cream from the corner of my mouth, sucking it off her fingertip, and then taking a slow drink from her coffee cup.

I was almost certain she didn't mean to turn me on as much as she did.

"Sorry, I've been burning a lot of calories lately," I said in a tone that implied I wasn't the least bit apologetic. "I'm not used to the steady stream of exertions." I winked at her and shoved another bite into my mouth.

"I should hope not," she mumbled, staring into her mug. I didn't think she meant for me to hear. I eyed her carefully as she seemed to debate something for a moment. Then she looked up abruptly and I set my fork down to gave her my full attention.

"Did you tell your parents you were coming here?" she asked in a tone that was light and nonchalant. It was forced.

I swallowed hard and met her gaze. "Dad knows I'm here," I answered honestly. "And he knows _why_ I am here."

Her eyes widened in shock. "Really?" Her voice was unnaturally high.

I nodded. "I didn't tell anyone else why I left a few days early. To be honest, I led them to believe that I was headed back to New York, but only because I wanted to surprise you and I didn't want to say anything to anyone without discussing it with you first. Which I obviously couldn't do, so…" My words were coming fast and colliding into one another by the time I finally stopped and took a breath.

I had debated just telling everyone I was coming to Tempe and letting them think whatever in the hell they wanted. But then I would have had to tell Bella's dad I was coming to visit her. I didn't know what to do; it all seemed like a violation of someone's trust. But the person whose trust I was the most concerned in maintaining was the woman sitting across from me. She was my priority. So I remained vague, essentially lying to everyone until I had a chance to confer with Bella.

I knew she had just said it as a snarky comment in jest. I wasn't upset by it in the least. If I was confident in anything, it was our incomparable trust in one another. Yet all the same, it needed to be addressed. I sighed, eyeing the waffles that were getting cold, pouting internally.

"Bella, I truthfully just didn't think it was my place to out us to everyone, especially your dad, without you there or even knowing about it. I wanted to… but it just didn't feel right without you, you know?"

Silence.

"Bella? Look… I love you more than anything in this world. And I will be more than happy to call Charlie right now and tell him that. I just didn't want to make any unilateral decisions, it's not our style. We're a team, we always have been. So…"

"I get it. Thank you," she interrupted my rambling explanations that were frustratingly circular any way. She seemed to mean it; her tone was soft and genuine. "You did the right thing, Edward. I would have done the same."

After a few minutes of silence that I wasn't sure whether it was charged or not, Bella perked her head up.

"So your dad knows about us, huh?"

My stomach lurched and I cringed inwardly at _how __much _my dad knew. I sighed. "Yes, he knows. And he isn't the least bit surprised. He was very encouraging. I'm sure it's how they will all react, Bella, once we tell them."

She laughed. The sound was light and musical in my ears. I adored the sound of her laughter. It had a way of instantly soothing me, grounding me, and reminding me that it was my purpose in life.

"What?" I asked once she settled down.

"I'm just trying to imagine what in the world we will say to them when we finally do say something." She chewed on her lip in thought and I let my own mind scamper over the idea.

"Well," I began. "Ideally we would say something that would _not _get me murdered by Charlie."

"Yeah… that's why I was laughing. Good luck with that," Bella snorted, rolling her eyes.

"Exactly," I muttered, letting the word end the conversation and linger in the air between us. We changed the subject and finished breakfast.

After breakfast, we ended up in a bowling alley where I heavily schooled Bella in the art form –even after I intentionally threw a few into gutters. We decided it was time to leave after the _second_ time I had to save Bella from peril by catching her after the tread-less bowling shoes and high-gloss lanes proved to be a near-fatal combination for her.

Bella pouted about losing two games in a row as she jumped around on one foot, pulling a rented shoe off the other.

"Seriously, you could have let me win just one of the games," she whined. I slipped on my street shoes and waited for her to finish. Then we made our way out of the dim alleys and into the blindingly bright day outside.

"I tried!" I roared with laughter, our conversation continuing as we walked. "Seriously, how many times have we been bowling together? When have you ever seen me throw gutter balls, Bella?"

She stopped walking and widened her eyes at me in mock indignation. "You did that on purpose? Edward! That's even worse!" She shoved me away from her, marching off and looking really fucking cute as she huffed down the sidewalk.

I laughed after her but then jogged until I caught up with her. I placed an arm around her shoulder, squeezing it. "It's okay, love, next time we will just ask for one of the end lanes and have them put down those little kiddie bumper thingys for you. How's that sound?" I ruffled her hair as if she was the little kid in question and kissed the top of her head. She glowered up at me, her nose scrunched up and her eyes on fire. I placed a softer, more repentant kiss on her forehead, and then pulled her along the sidewalk, keeping my arm around her shoulder and giggling silently at her. A minute later, she stopped abruptly.

"Oh hey, this is that little movie theatre I was telling you about," she said, gesturing to the black metal door in front of us that was wedged between an ice cream shop and a convenient store. I cocked an eyebrow at her.

_What the hell kind of theatre could be behind that door?_

"No, Edward you have to see inside one of these times, it's really cool. It's downstairs, below street level. It has a normal-sized screen, except the room just has regular chairs and couches in it instead of movie chair. And the vendor serves you pop in glass cups. It's really cool."

Bella was smiling all bright and excitedly as she described it. I peered at the movie poster that was tacked onto the door with industrial-strength magnets. The theatre was currently running some subtitled, Swedish, Indie film. According to the little, white writing at the top of the poster, it had swept the film-festival circuit a few years back and was a "must-see".

"So let's go in. It says there's a showing in an hour," I offered.

"Don't be silly, we can go another time," she said, shaking her head. I noted that she expected me to come back with a smile. "We just saw that movie last night, and something tells me you didn't come all this way to spend the entire weekend watching movies."

"Bella, don't be ridiculous. I just came to spend time with you. I don't care what we do as long as we do it together. Besides, you didn't see more than five minutes of the movie last night before you fell asleep. And the theatre sounds cool, I want to see it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." I winked at her and leaned over to kiss her.

"Okay, cool. Let's go see a movie," she said, smiling happily and opening the door. I reached out and held it open for her, ushering her in first.

From the moment we walked through the front door it was evident that it was no normal theatre. The stairwell that led down to the lobby was narrow and carpeted in old, red shag carpeting, with dim lighting streaking the sides of the painted black walls. There were framed vintage movie posters lining the walls, and no overhead lighting. The stairwell opened up into the tiny lobby that was filled with the same dim lighting and red carpet. The "vendor" was just some guy doing homework at a low coffee table with a few torn couches scattered around him. There was an old-fashioned popcorn maker on his left and two tall bookshelves on his right. One bookshelf had nothing but various kinds of boxed candy lining the shelves, while the other had a mismatched assortment of glasses, bowls, and napkins. There was modern soda dispenser in the corner sitting awkwardly on a Formica countertop next to an antique cash register and a copper basin sink.

We ordered a pop to share, separate bowls of popcorn to _not _share, paid for our movie tickets, and then made our way down the hall to the theatre. There wasn't an actual door leading into the theatre, instead there was just a heavy, velvet curtain. I held it to the side with my foot while Bella ducked under it and slipped through.

The room was large, painted black, and had a decent sized movie screen. However, what really made it unique was the layout. It was barely a stadium arrangement with only a gradual slope to the floor leading down to the screen, and in the back corners were two raised balconies with separate spiral staircases leading to them. On the main floor there was a random assortment of large furnishings, all velvet and all unattached to the floor, allowing patrons to move them at their will. Couches and club chairs were clustered together around the few coffee tables that littered the room. No one was there yet except for us.

"Wow, Bella, you were right. This place is really neat." I nodded in appreciation.

"I told you," she beamed at me, holding her bowl of popcorn in one hand and using her free hand to steal some of mine purely just to irritate me. I had our shared pop in my other hand so I couldn't stop her. She popped the kernels in her mouth dramatically and giggled.

_Such a tease._

"Follow me, let's go sit up there," she said, gesturing at one of the staircases.

The balcony was small and only had enough room for one couch. It was an ornate, purple, crushed velvet thing that sat on large claw legs and had gold beading around the edges of the cushions. The surrounding walls were also painted black and there was a two-foot tall ledge in front of the couch with painted black wainscoting.

We got comfortable and Bella kicked off her boots and curled her legs underneath her while I leaned against the far arm of the couch, inhaling my popcorn before she could have a chance to steal any more. We laughed and talked easily until the lights dimmed and the movie began. Only a handful of other people had come in by the time the screen lit up.

We were both finished with our popcorn, so I stacked the bowls and placed them gently on the floor to the side of the couch. I reached over to pull Bella's legs out from underneath her and stretched them out against mine. The movie began and I watched, running my fingers along the soft skin of Bella's calf and cupping her little feet in my hands, kneading at her arches. Not far into the movie, I felt Bella's eyes on me. I turned and found her biting her lip and gazing at me with heavy eyelids. I snickered at her. She was insatiable.

And I had an idea.

Artfully ignoring the lust rolling off her in strong waves as the movie played before us, I ran my fingers along her leg, gradually working them higher and higher. Until finally, I gave up being coy and threw her legs off me abruptly. She gasped, startled, and stared at me. I climbed down from the couch and crouched toward her. I placed my hands on either side of her head against the back of the couch and kissed her. Deeply.

Our tongues met eagerly, sliding against each other, and Bella moaned into my mouth. She reached up and ran her little fingers along the bare skin at my sides made easily accessible as my shirt hung forward while I hovered over her. I moved my kiss along her jaw and down her neck, across her collarbone, and then over the skin above the neckline of her dress. I let my hands fall from the couch and run along her body as I slowly knelt before her. Her fingers that had been toying with my abs stalled, her eyes wide and silently beseeching me. She was both terrified and excited to see what I was going to do next. As was I.

With a lock on her eyes and a movement so slow my entire body shuddered, rioting against the near-constant need to carnally consume her, I bent my head down to the top of one smooth, pale, bare thigh and placed a warm, wet kiss against the porcelain skin accentuated by the blackness. She closed her eyes, laid her head against the back of the couch, and breathed heavily. I ran my tongue against her skin and sucked lightly, sending a noticeable tremor through her little body.

"What are you doing?" she asked in a breathy, anxious voice without opening her eyes or raising her head. I moved to the other thigh, keeping my palms cupped around the backs of her knees, and placed a similar kiss just below the place where the hem of her dress fell. I licked and laved back and forth against the tops of her thighs, not answering her question or increasing my ministrations, forcing her to open her eyes and look down at me if she wanted an answer.

Her mouth hung open and her features twitched with each small suckle I made at her skin. My fingers softly caressed the backs of her knees, holding her legs in place on either side of me. Eventually, she lifted her eyelids with what seemed like a great deal of effort, but did not lift her head. She chewed on her lip for a moment, staring above her at the black ceiling, the movie behind me all but forgotten. Her arms lay limp at her sides, but her fingers twitched on occasion, usually whenever I followed my kiss with a little nibble.

While she stared at the ceiling, I took my time allowing each alternating kiss to slowly drift just a half an inch inward from the previous one toward the inside of her thighs. I was licking more than I was nipping, thoroughly enjoying the smooth, satin feel of her skin against my tongue and lips.

Bella's hips began lifting and moving involuntarily, yet still, she stared at the ceiling biting her lip and wincing occasionally as if she were in pain…which I knew she was not, she was merely restraining herself and enjoying my touch. That was one thing about Bella and I, we revelled in pleasuring one another. Yet we also knew when to lie back, or sit back as it were, and equally relish in receiving pleasure. Neither of us had any qualms with taking our time. In fact, I vastly preferred being able to take my sweet time with her body. I loved feeling her writhe beneath me – building her up in the way that only I knew how to do, and then sending her to the brink and back repeatedly. I greatly anticipated the moment when, after working her up meticulously, I could slip my fingers into her and feel how much I was capable of affecting her. As it was, I knew I had well over an hour before the lights would rise in the room, and I planned to utilize every minute of it.

With my long fingers still curled around the backs of Bella's knees, I let my kisses slide further and further down the inside of her leg, nudging her with my nose each time to open her legs wider. I gently pulled her closer to me as I licked the supple skin inside her thigh. I felt her legs lock down a second before she moaned my name, but in warning, not pleasure. Well –there was definitely traces of pleasure in the urgent, whimpering tone –but its intention was cautionary.

I glanced up through my eyelashes at her face as I worked, her eyes were closed and her lips were pressed together and turned up at the corners in a beautiful smile. I continued.

I lifted each leg simultaneously, cupping them, and gently placed them over my shoulders so they could spread and lay against my back, effectively raising the hem of her skirt as well. The little hand by her side that had been twitching darted up and slid into my hair, tugging in protest. I peeked up at her as she pulled harder. Her eyes were glazed over but peering at me, as I met hers, her breath hitched and her thighs trembled against my shoulders. I leaned my head into her hand, her touch, and turned toward it to place a kiss at the inside of her wrist before I met her eyes that I could feel were pleading for me to look back.

One of her legs slipped off my shoulder as I ran my hands down each calf and then brought them to the couch, gripping her hips and dragging her closer to the edge. Her eyes widened.

"Edward," she whispered, looking around frantically. Which was both futile and comical – it was a pitch-black room, we were entirely hidden from view, even from the little window where the projector was housed, and the movie was loud enough that she could practically scream and no one would notice….which was precisely my plan. So essentially, there was not a damned thing stopping me from lavishing all over Bella…except, _Bella. _

"Yes," I answered slowly, my lips whispering against her skin as I spoke. I tightened my fingers around her hips, in case she intended to scoot away from me.

"Oh god, Edward," she moaned, still trying to sound reprimanding.

"Hold still," I growled, nipping at the skin just inches away from her centre in warning.

I slid one hand down her hip, over her bare thigh and back up the inside of her leg, bringing my fingers all the way to the top. I brushed the backs of them against the wet fabric of her panties, allotting her some of the friction that whether she admitted it or not, she was dying for.

"What if someone sees?" she whined.

"Who the hell is going to see, Bella," I laughed against her thigh, nudging the fabric of her panties with my nose.

She moaned and flinched, then released her lip and looked down at me. "What if someone comes up here?"

"In the middle of the movie?"

"I don't know, maybe." She wasn't _really_ fighting me.

"Then I'll tell them I'm proposing to you." I smiled at the idea.

"With your head in between my legs," she scoffed. I laughed loudly.

"How about you shut up and lay your head back and just feel me. Besides, I owe you one," I ordered. She smiled widely and obliged, her thighs slackening one either side of me, allowing me to do whatever I wanted.

I licked my lips in anticipation. I bent down and bit firmly yet gently on her clit through her panties, causing her to whimper and pant above me. I slowly slid the fingers that were not wrapped around her hip underneath the edge of her panties, the backs sweeping against her. I ran them up and down the length of her a few times, feeling the slick moisture against my fingers as I continued to place kisses against the inside of her thighs.

I curled my fingers around the fabric and swept it to the side out of my way. I knew she was anticipating feeling my fingers slide into her next. Instead, I leaned into her and dragged my tongue against her, drinking her in and revelling in her ready reaction to my touch. I slid my tongue through her folds and dove into her, lapping up every drop of moisture I created in her. One leg lifted off the ground and her little, bare toes curled tightly. Her hand shot into my hair and clenched tightly.

"Holy fuck, Edward," she gasped, curling her fingers tighter into my hair. It didn't escape me that while she enjoyed tugging at my hair, she was also holding me there, ensuring I wasn't just lapping at her for a moment then planning on switching to my fingers. She wanted my mouth on her and she wasn't shy about making sure I knew it. That was just one of the reasons I fucking loved her…_us._

I slid one hand down from her hip, to rest at the top of her thigh, my thumb rubbing slow, steady circles on her most sensitive spot, while I licked, lapped, and sucked at her. Just as her thighs were trembling against me and her hips were rising off the couch to meet me greedily, I slid my hand from her clit and circled two fingertips around her, then slid effortlessly into her. I tightened my grip on her hip, holding her to the couch, curled the fingers that were inside her, hitting her in exactly the right place, and flicked my tongue over the throbbing, swollen little bud of flesh, as Bella panted and whimpered above me. She writhed and moaned unapologetically and I pushed her over the edge, the movie drowning out most of her sounds. She clenched around my fingers and her grip tightened in my hair as she came.

Once she finished riding out the orgasm, I pulled my fingers slowly from her. I licked them clean and then placed a tender kiss right at her center before sitting back on my heels and looking up at her. I wiped at the corners of my mouth, readjusted her panties, and waited for her to be stable enough to find the strength to open her eyes and look at me.

After a few minutes, they peeked open. I smiled widely at her and she chuckled and sighed in contentment. Her eyes rolled back into her head again but the smile stayed at her lips. I climbed back up onto the couch and sidled up next to her, draping my arm over her shoulders and pulling her against me. She nuzzled against my neck and purred sweet sounding thanks, which made me laugh.

We watched the tail end of the movie in absolute, perfect silence.

Once the movie was finished, we made our way to a local pizzeria to place an order and take it back to the apartment. While it was being made, Bella suggested we head to the market across the street to buy some junk food and drinks. We were going to have a typical college dinner of pizza, Cheetos, and beer.

I carried the pizza, balancing the beer atop the box, while Bella held the grocery bag with the chips and various other snacks and we made our way back to the apartment. Halfway there, I noticed Bella peering over at me oddly from the corner of her eye several times as I rambled about nothing of consequence.

"What?" I chuckled at her as I caught her looking at me again. She bit her lip and looked away.

"Nothing," she muttered. Which meant it was something. I remembered the conversation we had left semi-unresolved at breakfast, as well as her troubling night and scowled at her, growing annoyed with her rare elusiveness.

"Bella," I drug out her name, cautioning her to just cut the shit that we had been hedging around all day and tell me.

Nothing, honestly. I was just thinking… So, you said Carlisle wasn't surprised? What did he say exactly?"

By that time, we had reached her apartment. Bella opened the door and we made our way into the dining room area. I put the pizza down on the table and went to go throw the beer into the fridge, grabbing two bottles out of the box first. I took my time organising my thoughts, sensing that we were finally about to have _that _conversation, and rummaged through the drawers looking for a bottle opener. When I came up short I stood up with my eyebrows knit together in frustration and discovered Bella standing in front of me holding the sought after item with an impatient look on her face. I smiled and took it, popped open the bottles, tossed the caps into the garbage can and offered her one. She took it with a smile that read more as a threat, grabbed two plates from the cabinet and went over to the box of pizza. She slid a piece onto her plate and went into the living room. She slowly slunk down to the floor leaning her back against the couch. I followed suit, eyeing her speculatively.

"So?" she encouraged.

"Bella, I told you, he wasn't surprised. There's really nothing more to tell."

"Why did you tell him?" she asked, taking a bite of her pizza and averting her eyes.

"Uhm…well…to be honest. I didn't, he sort of guessed." There was no way in hell I was going to divulge the truth, which would embarrass the shit out of Bella and make her unnecessarily uncomfortable around my father in the future. I hoped she would accept that he had just guessed and drop it. In any case, the conversation was quickly headed away from the "light and good-natured" path, so I down my beer and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Oh," was her only response and her tone left no mistaking the fact that she was disappointed about something. I knew immediately what it was.

"You were hoping that I had told him? That I was making a step toward revealing us to everyone?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

She looked up at me, taking a swig of her beer and putting her plate on the floor, abandoning it for the moment. She nodded.

"Bella?" I set my plate next to hers and looked back to her with soft eyes.

Nothing. I waited. I could try to be patient for her. Just as my mind was swarming with hopes and fears, so was hers. I inhaled deeply, waiting. I blew out the breath – slow and steady. I drummed my fingertips against my thigh. I licked my lips. I swear to god I could hear the fucking second had ticking away from her bedroom again.

I was done waiting.

"Isabella," I said much more firmly than I meant to, my frustration getting the best of me. "What is this all about? What do you want from me? I'm here for crying out loud. What do you think that says? I told you before, I'll fucking call Charlie right this second. I'll tell him everything, starting from the beginning. I won't leave a single thing out. I couldn't care less if he knows…if they all know."

"'Couldn't care less?' Nice," she muttered staring at her lap.

"Dammit, Bella, don't mince my words. That's not at all what I mean and you know it." She did. I was going insane trying to figure out what she was getting at, it wasn't like her to dance around anything or to play petty games. She wasn't that kind of girl. There was something more on her mind; I just had to uncover it. I stood up and grabbed two more beers from the fridge, opened them, and took a long drag off mine. I came back to sit in front. She looked sheepish.

"I know that's not what you meant. I'm sorry," she mumbled, her cheeks flaming and trembling as she fought back whatever emotion she was suppressing.

"Don't apologise, just have faith in us. In _me._Bella. I won't ever hurt you again. Believe in me, please?_"_My voice cracked.

"I do. I mean... Edward, I should, right? Like…this thing, whatever it is you want to call it or not call it – since you say we are so above generic labels –whatever the hell it is that we are, it's just _us, _right?"

_Fuck. T__here it is…_

"Isabella," I whispered, my tone reprimanding but significantly softer than before. She knew better than that. "You know it is."

"I know, I do. And you know how explicitly I trust you. But I'm still just a girl, Edward. And all the trust in the world can fade in and out with waning self-confidence, you know? I just I need to hear it, out loud. I need it to feel real before you just scurry off to New York again and I'm left wondering if all of this was just some crazy dream. I worry that I'll wake up one day and realise we never resolved things. That no one knows our history, and we have no future. I just...need...something..." Despite what was obviously her best effort to suppress them, tears they slid down her cheeks.

I understood what she needed. She wanted to know that I was just as lonely and miserable every night in New York as she was in Arizona. She wanted to hear me tell her exactly how horrid every moment spent away from her was, so that she could have some solace in our shared agony. She needed to know that she was the one occupying space in my mind and my heart, and that, above all else, she was the one I longed for.

I slipped my hands behind her neck, lacing my fingers into her hair and cradling her head. Despite it all, it felt good to have that conversation finally and no longer dance around it. It was the first step in our future together.

"I understand everything you just said, love. More than you know. And the answer is, absolutely. Bella, you are the only one I have ever wanted. The only one I will _ever _want. I promise you that. The idea of life with anyone but you sickens me. You are everything I want for my future."

I kissed her forehead, my thumbs rubbing reassuringly behind her ears. When I pulled back to look at her a new tear had slid down her cheek. I brushed it away with my thumb and pulled her to me, kissing her deeply. I sighed into her mouth and drew in a breath, sharing my air with her.

We backed out of the kiss and our lips lingered and trembled against one another's. I stared into her eyes, trying to find the right words for her. "Bella. What exactly do you think I'm doing here?" I asked.

"Visiting," she answered in a small voice, heavily laden with tears.

I chuckled at her. "No, Bella." I hooked my finger under her chin and lifted her face back up toward mine, to look me in the eyes, to see how soft and tender they were for her. She needed to feel the words as I said them. "I don't mean here literally, I just mean in general. Us. What do you think I'm working toward with you, what do you think I want?" My thumb grazed her lower lip as I spoke.

I hadn't actually meant the words to come out as questions –they just kind of did. And I certainly didn't expect her to try and answer them. She bit her lip underneath my thumb and shook her head lightly, encouraging me to elaborate. I sighed and dropped my hand, downed the rest of my second beer and tried to better organise my thoughts. I started with the obvious.

"I love you. I have always loved you. I crave you. I really don't think you fucking get that. Everything in me screams for you. For your touch, your voice, your laughter...I need it around me. I need it in the air I breathe in order to feel at peace with myself. Otherwise, I'm miserable and anxious all the time. Every second spent away from you is agony, Bella. And likewise..." I pause a moment and let me voice stabilize. "Being with you... Bella... Nothing compares to how happy it makes me. To feel you, and hold you, and be near you. I love you with everything I have, and it _has _to be enough. Because if its not it will destroy me to ever lose you. We aren't above labels, that's what I meant. I just meant that to say you are my girlfriend seems so diluted. You're something so much more powerful and significant than that. No one that knows us doubts that. Everyone knows how much you mean to me. So don't tell me that you don't. You have to. I've never hidden how much love I have for you. For _only_ you."

Bella crawled up into my lap and laid her tiny hands against my cheeks, the pads of her thumbs resting over my lips, quieting me. "It was the wrong term to say that it was a matter of trust. Obviously it isn't. I have always trusted you, Edward. And if I'm being entirely honest, I even trusted that we would find our way back to one another when we were lost. And I have definitely never doubted that you are my future. I guess I just needed to make sure you are as utterly miserable as I am all the time. I'm glad you are. So thank you." She smiled.

I laughed. Of course I was miserable.

I ran my hands down her back and across her hips. I gripped her ass and squeezed until she shrieked and slapped the back of my head. "I happen to not be entirely miserable at the moment," I purred, kissing my way around the shell of her ear, still squeezing the sweet flesh of her ass. She moaned something nonsensical, spurring on the need that was beginning to build inside me.

We took our time. We stripped slowly, enjoying every new piece of exposed skin. Worshipping each other with kisses and caresses. I unapologetically laid Bella out in the middle of the brightly lit living room and made love to her. So slowly that it was almost painful. So meticulously that I lost myself in her. So absorbed in the sensation of her wrapped around me, consuming me, that when her little voice whispered beneath me it took me a moment to register what she was saying.

It was a slow, hushed chant that she repeated several times as I hovered over her, rocking slowly in and out of her body, sending a chorus of sensational waves through us both.

"Promise…promise…only me…" she was whispering. I wasn't sure she meant for me to notice it. It was a soft, faint murmuring; nearly drown out by our moans of pleasure.

I reached down to her hip and secured her against me and rolled slowly to my side, and then to my back. I kept us connected while shifting her above me. I brought my hands up to her face and swept her hair off her cheeks and over her shoulders, peering up at her. She was so beautiful. She belonged to me, and only me. And vice versa. There was no doubt about that.

"Bella," I sighed as she began to move expertly against me. I knew the friction from the new position was going to push her over the edge quickly. Her palms rest against my chest and her hips worked over mine, driving me deep inside her. The heat curled through me and I pushed it aside for the moment so I could attend to her first. Her eyes were closed and her teeth dug into her lower lip. I watched in awed silence for another moment before speaking up again. "Bella, I promise."

That caught her attention. She wasn't aware I had heard her. Her eyes flew open and she looked down at me with almost apologetic eyes. I pulled at her shoulders until she lay flat against me, still raising and lowering her hips rhythmically. I cradled her head against my chest and held her tight.

"I promise, Bella. And someday…I will do so much more than just promise." My voice was gravelly and thick with strain and emotion.

She peeked up at me through her eyelashes, her cheek flat against my chest. "What's better than a promise?' she whispered, sliding one hand up my neck and into my hair, twirling her fingers in it.

She swept her hot, wet lips across my chest, depositing kisses along the way to my neck, and then one final sensuous, little kiss on the tip of my chin before she stopped and looked into my eyes. She braced herself against me with her other hand, sliding along me, letting me fill and claim her as she looked into my depths. I swear she saw my soul in that moment.

"Better than a promise, Bella?" I whispered in her ear as she lowered her head back to my chest and I held my arms tight around her little body, keeping her pressed against me. "A vow."

* * *

*crowd goes AWWW*

I wanna marry SSward!

boo

Please review... it makes my day in ways no ridiculously long A/N can ever properly explain. So just shut up and do it. ;)

Kthabai

The next chapter WILL be up in a few days. No excuses.

Hearts,

Air

xox


	15. Permanent Marker

)*(&#^%$!

I dared to do a few minor adjustments to this chapter on my itouch....it wiped all my formatting.

*facepalm*

So I beg whoever the first person is to read this to PM me or tweet me or send a goddamn carrier pigeon to my doorstep and let me know if there are any glaring formatting issues...please. Thank you. Moving on...

*still grumbling under breath*

I'm going to hand you some tissues, because if you are anything like me, you will need them at then end of this chapter.

I love you all. Your reviews are overwhelming. Your words wrap my heart in warmth and it feels good. Thank you all so so much!

A special thanks to the girls over at the Robstenlove forum. I have no words for how amazing you are to me.

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Enjoy!

Air

* * *

Her body stilled for briefly as she registered the tiny word I breathed into her ear. So small. So profound. So true.

"Edward." Her voice was small and clearly choked up. My name was both a question and command. "Don't say things like that if you don't mean them," she whispered, head curled just beneath my chin. She sounded like she was going to cry.

I dipped my head down and ran my palms up her back until they cupped the sides of her head. I held her close to me, forcing her watery little eyes to connect with mine.

"Isabella…you have no idea how serious I am.

To reinforce my declaration I brushed my lips over hers at a slow, intimate pace that matched the rest of our movements as we continued to make love. My eyes were open and I peered at her with something akin to awe. Hers were closed and softly fluttering as she returned my kiss.

The movement inside of her, her glowing, ethereal face against mine, her soft lips, and our powerful words were a cocktail for an emotional climax. Molten flames of promise and adoration licked through me, pricking at my eyes and pulling on my heartstrings.

Bella slid her hands underneath my shoulders and curled her arms around me, driving me deeper and our bodies closer. She held onto me, panting and whimpering my name repeatedly. I climaxed with her and then we crashed – naked, spent, and fulfilled on the floor of her living room.

Several hours later I scooped her up and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. It was dark and warm in her little bed wrapped around one another. It was cramped and every morning I woke up with my joints screaming in protest. Still...I would happily sleep the rest of my life in there with Bella.

The sound of a phone alarm screeching through the silent morning woke me up. It was shrill and unnerving, but at the same time it seemed muted, as if it were under a pillow or in another room. It recycled through the incessant ringing and, much to my inconvenience; it became obvious it had no intention of stopping until someone made it. I muttered under my breath and rolled Bella off me. I threw on a pair of boxers and fumbled down the stairs half asleep, tripping as I misjudged the steps and stumbled gracelessly into the middle of the living room. Raking my hand through the mess of hair standing on end atop my head I rummaged through Bella's discarded clothes looking for the cell that was still chirping angrily away, taunting me. That was when my half-asleep brain realised the noise was coming from behind me.

I squinted against the bright morning sunlight streaming merrily through the dining room window and found Bella's cell on the counter in the kitchen. I silenced the relentless bastard and then turned to retreat back into the warm and cozy haven nestled against Bella when something finally caught my eye. I stopped dead in my tracks. My eyes shot open in alarm and adrenaline exploded through me.

A dark haired girl sat at the kitchen table bent over a bowl of cereal. A spoon was stalled midway to her mouth, full of Golden Grahams and dripping milk all over the table, while her jaw hung agape.

Shit. The roommate.

Her eyes were the size of saucers as she slowly recovered, clearing her throat. She dropped the spoon back into the bowl and jumped up to reach over the bar and grabbed a roll of paper towels. Wiping up the milk mess, she sat back down and took another bite of cereal, clearly forcing herself to simmer down.

I had yet to move a muscle – and I was pretty sure I was blushing fiercely. I held the silent phone in one hand while the other combed through my hair awkwardly, really wishing I had more clothes on. The living room told a pretty clear tale of what took place the night before with two complete sets of clothes strewn about the floor. Thank god that whenever the girl had come home it was evidently after I carried Bella up to bed.

_Or was it? _

Shit. She could have easily snuck in and climbed the stairs without us hearing, but meanwhile getting an eyeful of us naked and huddled together in sleep on the carpet.

More blushing.

"Uh, I take it you're Edward?" she asked, barely concealing her quiet, slightly-uncomfortable giggles.

_Well…at least she knows who I am._ The thought made me smile despite the uneasiness, that I would be the only half-naked man she could imagine wandering out of Bella's room at such an ungodly morning hour. Then I wondered what else she knew. How much she and Bella shared and what information she could potentially have that I did not.

All I could do was nod slowly, like an imbecile. I had yet to blink my wide-eyes and my brows were knit together in embarrassment.

"I figured," she said, nodding toward the living room.

Awkward silence.

I knew I should introduce myself in a more proper and respectful manner, instead of practically ignoring the girl, but there wasn't much proper or respectful about standing barefoot in clingy boxer-briefs and obvious sex-hair in some poor stranger's kitchen. So…I was at a bit of an impasse.

"She has class," she said, rescuing me from my own ineptness.

"Huh?" I was all kinds of eloquent.

"She has class," she repeated slowly, with a wry smirk on her face. "An 8:30 English class, that's why her alarm is going off." She nodded at the phone in my palm and looked at me like I might me a few short.

"Oh, shit, right. She needs to wake up," I muttered, finally comprehending. "Uhm, thanks, and….sorry." I made a vague gesture at myself and smiled sheepishly. Much to my confusion _she_ blushed. Fucking girls…

I quickly grabbed our clothes and climbed the stairs to wake Bella for class, already bracing myself for the whining and grumbling I was about to face.

She did not disappoint. It took me forty minutes just to get her in the shower, at which point it was going to take a miracle for her to not be late to her first lecture. She begged me to not make her go to class, claiming she could miss one lousy day and that I was leaving the next day and we needed to spend time together. While she had a point, I refused to let my visit disrupt her school, or else I ran the risk of being too afraid to come back. And I was already eagerly planning my next visit.

In the end, I had to agree to climb into the shower with her just to get her in. Not that she had to twist my arm too much, but I did feel bad about her poor roommate whom I had clearly traumatized by prancing around in my underwear as she tried to innocently eat her cereal. Now we were subjecting her to new heights of discomfort by climbing into a shower naked together.

But it was a small battle that Bella won easily, because sex in the shower with the water running over us was…well…_fucking sex in the shower with the water running over us._ It wasn't really a tough decision. And she was late for class.

_You gotta do what you gotta do,_ I snickered silently in my head with a devious smirk on my face while taking Bella against the tiled wall. I had to keep one foot pressed against the corner of the stall to keep from slipping or losing my grip on Bella's wet body.

Bella's wet body... I raked my strained eyes over her and came instantly.

And then, Bella was on her way like a good little girl. She had three classes all back to back and would be home around three in the afternoon, which gave me plenty of time to get everything on my list done, so I was just fine with that.

After standing near the entrance to the building of her first class and kissing her good-bye for over twenty minutes, berating myself silently the entire time because she was already tardy…but not finding the strength inside myself to make that a priority over the soft, velvet feel of her lips and her tongue brushing against mine.

Finally I had to relinquish her and send her into the building alone. My body ached with the loss immediately. My heart filled with lead at the thought that I had less than twenty-four hours left with her.

I pushed back the encroaching black threats as they circled around me, and forced myself to make the most of what little time I did have with Bella. And with that I was off to check items off my to-do list. I had to work fast if I was going to get everything done in time.

My first task required a cab, which I found easily near the main road of the university. I gave the driver my destination, and then asked him to wait outside while I did what I had to do. Ten minutes later I climbed back into the car, headed back toward Bella's with the goods secure in the front pocket of my messenger bag and a smile, albeit a bittersweet one, on my face.

After I paid the cabbie, he took off, leaving me in front of the market where we got the beer the night before. I went in and collected all the things I needed to make a nice dinner for Bella and her roommate if she was going to be around. She was more than welcome to dine with us, I owed her that much.

I planned to make something easy...but I wanted to make sure to get all the right ingredients. It seemed to take forever, meandering through the market aisles, looking for everything. I may have had to phone my mother twice to ask for help. The excitement in her voice was evident when it became clear I was planning on cooking a nice dinner for a girl. I felt horrible about not telling her which girl, specifically, but that was definitely an "in-person" sort of conversation.

With all my groceries in hand, I made my way back to Bella's and got started on boiling water for the macaroni noodles in the Italian fagioli soup. It had always been a favourite of Bella's whenever my mom made it. I just hoped I could pull it off properly.

As I was prepping for the soup, my cell rang. I grabbed it without looking, thinking it would more than likely be Bella.

"Hello," I said into the receiver jammed, between my shoulder and my ear while stirring the ground beef that was sautéing.

"So, apparently you have the time to call your mother for directions on how not to screw up her fagioli, but not to return a call from your old man, huh? I see how it is."

Shit.

"Dad. I'm sorry, it's just been really busy down here and I leave tomorrow and really I only called mom because..."

"Edward. I'm just messing with you, son. Of course I'm not really upset," dad chuckled into the phone cutting me off. "I just wanted to see how it was going. Was Bella was pleased to see you suddenly appear on her doorstep?"

I was glad he wasn't in the room with me. I felt the red creeping up my neck thinking about how thoroughly she had demonstrated her pleasure at my appearance...repeatedly. My dick twitched involuntarily at the thought.

I cleared my throat and shoved the thoughts aside for the moment. "Uh…yeah, I'd say the gesture was a hit."

Dad roared with laughter. No further explanation necessary. He's a man after all.

Red...creeping higher.

It was awkward for me because for one thing, I had just barely reached that age where you start toying with the idea that your parents actually consider you an adult –the time when you begin to swear mildly in front of them and tentatively breech the topic of your sex-life. But also because Bella was like an adopted daughter to him. The entire thing was slightly uncomfortable. Though, dad seemed much more at ease with the situation than me, as he took his time coming down from his ride of laughter.

"I bet," he finally managed to sputter. "I just wanted to know what time you get back into New York, given that I am the only one besides Bella who knows you will be in the air, I'd like to check in on you and make sure you got home safely."

After I gave him all my flight details and had a few more minutes of slightly uncomfortable banter, I hung up and returned to the soup. An overwhelming wave of melancholy washed over me at the idea of walking away bright and early the next morning. My heart squeezed and sharp, splintery shards of something much more painful than glass coursed through me when I thought about being alone again. I hated being alone. Specifically...I hated being without Bella.

I blew out a long and laboured breath. The next few years could not go fast enough...

Bella was due home about an hour before her roommate. By the time she came through the front door the soup was simmering on a back burner and filling the entire apartment with a mouth-watering aroma. The homemade alfredo sauce was simmering and the garlic bread was in the oven. I had my iPod plugged into the stereo in the living room, shuffling through random albums. A Coldplay song floated through the air as I was cutting up vegetables for the salad. Bella dropped her book bag heavily on the floor at the entrance of the kitchen, crossed her arms across her chest, and cocked her eyebrow at me.

I smiled and wiped my hands on the thighs of my jeans. I wrapped my arms around her, feeling more at ease instantly as our bodies met. She slid her hands up my arms and into my hair. I felt her little fingertips on my scalp moments before she actually touched me. I knew it was coming and I craved it. Nothing in the world could dislodge the smile on my face as I beamed down at her.

"You've been busy," she whispered, twirling her fingertips in my hair. I closed my eyes and just felt her touch for a moment, leaning my head back into her hands. A gentle purr rumbled in my chest and when I opened my eyes again Bella was easily the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She was still swirling her fingertips against the back of my head, but the expression on her face and the emotion in her eyes was what made her so radiant. She had a soft smile on her lips and her eyes were filled with understanding and love as she peered up at me.

"I love you, Edward," she whispered.

My heart shattered. In equal pieces of angst and affection. Love and agony. Hope and sadness. Commitment and frustration.

"I love you, Bella," I answered quietly, taking her face in my hands and bringing her lips to mine. She melted into me. Or perhaps it was the other way around. Either way or lips moved together is a slow, soft waltz. Each time my lips parted I peeked my tongue out and swept it across Bella's lower lips just before wrapping my lips around hers. The effect was a very slow, very intimate kiss. Every time I kissed her like that my toes tingled, my insides curled in pleasure, and my soul soared. I delighted in the idea of how connected she and I were. How much history and compassion flowed through us when our lips moved in that soft, tender way we had of kissing one another.

I lost all sense of time. Fuck. I lost all sense of what time zone I was in. I felt nothing but the luxurious caressing of Bella's lips against mine. The warm, wet heaven of her tongue against mine, and her fingers intertwined around my hair and tugging. Her little body rose and fell against mine, her thighs squirming and her back arching.

"Edward," she breathed into my mouth after letting out a long and sensuous moan.

"Mmm?"

She pulled back an inch and peered over my shoulder. My lips instantly felt sad and cold. "Shouldn't you stir that sauce?" she whispered.

"Shit." I spun around and grabbed the wooden spoon off the counter next to the pan and stirred the alfredo that was beginning to bubble in ways it shouldn't.

Bella giggled at me and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, popping off the cap and tossing it in the corner of the counter next to the one I had deposited there earlier. I put down the spoon, turned down the heat on the stovetop and turned back to her. She smirked obnoxiously at me. She was leaning against the counter opposite the stove and taking a swig from the bottle while stifling further laughter. I narrowed my eyes on her.

Before she had time to protest, I scooped her up and turned to sit her on the counter next to the chopping block with the salad on it. I pressed my way between her thighs until I was against her and the counter and could reach her better. I washed my narrowed eyes over her in a way that I knew screamed pure, unadulterated sex. Slowly, I dragged my hands from her shoulders, across her collarbone, the backs of my fingers coasting over the swell of her breasts, and then settling on her thighs. She shuddered and almost dropped the beer bottle. I smirked.

_I win._

I kissed her forehead and went back to chopping the salad.

Bella reached across me as I was cutting and dipped the wooden spoon into the alfredo, smiling at me when I grumbled because I had to stop dicing the eggplant while she leaned across my cutting board. She licked the spoon and her eyes widened.

"Holy shit! Edward!" She shrieked and licked the other side of the spoon. I was really beginning to enjoy feeding Bella. I figured she was complimenting the sauce, but with her perched on the counter above me and after watching her little tongue sweep the length of the spoon...every thought in my mind was utter filth. I squeezed my eyes shut firmly and swallowed thickly, trying to clear my head. I opened them back up as she was wiping alfredo sauce from the corner of her mouth with her index finger, then she sucked on it.

"Edward, did you make that from scratch? It's delicious!" She smiled over at me nodding with excitement. Then she narrowed her eyes at me and crunched her face up in confusion. "What?"

I think my upper lip may have twitched. That was it. I was incapable of forming words for another few seconds, still remembering her tongue dragging along the spoon.

"Wait. I know that look," she whispered.

"Do you?" I purred. "Maybe you should try the sauce one more time?" I winked at her and took the wooden spoon from her hand. She eyed me wearily, but I was having too much fun to not...

I dipped the spoon in the sauce, held it up for her to taste, but when she reached for it I pulled it back, shook my head at her and waited. I held the spoon vertically for a second and let the sauce drip slowly down the handle and then moved it closer to her for her to try. Smirking like the devil on a good day.

Bella kept her eyes locked on my narrow, heavy eyes, wrapped her little hand around mine holding the spoon handle, and then licked the entire length of the spoon painstakingly slow. I actually heard the light popping sound of my lips separating as my jaw dropped. She placed her hands back in her lap nicely and smiled at me. "So good," she whispered.

I threw the spoon in the pot, splashing everywhere and grabbed her ass, pulling her off the counter and against me. She caught herself around my neck just as I growled, "fuck dinner," and crammed my tongue down her throat. She wiggled herself against me intentionally, driving my already swelling dick mad. She returned my kiss, pulling at my neck and holding onto me tightly. But when I turned to make a run for it with her in my arms toward the bedroom she pulled back.

"No, Edward, stop. I'm starving. After dinner," she whined, smiling innocently at me.

_What the..._

"Or now..." I groaned, turning back toward the counter and resting her back onto it.

She nuzzled into my neck, kissing me and stroking my hair. "Not a chance, Edward," she whispered. "I'm famished and everything smells so good. Not to mention you clearly worked so hard. Later, please? I promise, baby, later." She trailed soft, innocent, little pecks along my neck and jaw. It was doing nothing for my tenuous restraint. She placed a small peck on my pouting lips then looked at me grinning.

There was something about the soft, natural way the little term of endearment rolled off her tongue. I wasn't even sure she realised she said it. But it sent a wave of electricity throughout my body when she did. Sure we said "I love you" and everything...but that was different. I loved Bella from birth. I loved her when I smashed that punk-ass kid in the face with a dump truck. I loved her when her mother died and she cried into my little ten year old chest every night when my parents thought we had gone to sleep at the cabin, and I loved her when we didn't speak for two years. I have always loved her. But there was something in that little word, something possessive and real. Something that altered the definition of our relationship, erasing the checkmark next to "friendship", moving it next "dating" instead.

My eyes were sparkling with love. My heart ached. My body throbbed. I smiled at her. "I'm holding you to that," I murmured, placing her all the way back on to the countertop and winking at her.

"Oh god, Edward. Please do," she giggled, taking another lick at the spoon. "Can we eat now?"

"Let me finish the salad," I said, grabbing the knife and finishing up.

"Okay. I'll set the table," she replied excitedly – moving to jump down from the counter.

I raised my knee, jamming it between her thighs and stopping her. I hooked my finger under her chin and brought her lips to mine one more time.

We broke apart and Bella smiled at me, and then went back in for another kiss just as her roommate came through the front door. One look at us and she rolled her eyes dramatically and started for the stairs.

"Wait," Bella called her back. "I was just about to set the table. Come eat with us."

The poor girl snorted and shook her head.

"No, really. Please?" I smiled at her. "I even promise to wear more than just underwear at the table this time." Bella glared at me. The roommate acquiesced.

We had a truly amazing meal. The conversation was light and fun with lots of animated laughter. Admittedly, I turned out to be a pretty stellar cook. If I were my girlfriend...I would be impressed. I kept that thought in mind as the three of us cleaned the kitchen, continuing our conversations that carried forward from the dinner table and into the small kitchen as we bustled around each other. Bella's roommate was sweet. But she was not the one I wanted to spend the rest of the evening with. And so I was thrilled when she announced she was off to meet up with a study group at a pub. She gave Bella a look that pretty much read as "go get 'em tiger" and left us alone.

And it was later...

And she _promised_.

We stood in the kitchen staring at each other silently – eyes glued on one another as the front door seemed to close behind her roommate in slow motion. Then it clicked quietly. And we were alone.

It took about six seconds before the electricity between us become completely unharnessed. I reached out my hand to her, palm up, inviting her to take it, eyes still on hers. Mine were soft and beseeching. Hers were wild and eager. We always seemed to take turns losing grip on our control – fortunately, rarely at the same time. More often than not we complimented one another perfectly.

Coming from underneath my open, awaiting palm, she slid her tiny fingers in between mine. I curled my fingers over hers and held onto her. Her eyes danced. She was enthralling. She was my girlfriend.

Keeping my eyes on hers, I gently kissed the tips of her fingers that were folded into my large hand. I smiled lovingly at her, feeling the twinkle in my eyes inflate as I looked to her with such love and respect that my heart pulsed wildly.

"Follow me?" It came out as a question. I hadn't meant it to. But when she sighed contentedly and whispered "always" I was glad it had. The weekend had been all about subtle reassurances.

I led her by the hand slowly up the stairs to her bedroom. I brought her to the bed and took her other hand in mine. I stood at the edge of her bed, clasping both of her tiny hands in mine, and swimming in the depths of her chocolate brown eyes. They brimmed with love for me. And I knew…that was where I was meant to be. It was my fate. To forever live in the reflection of Bella's deep, dark eyes – to consume her heart. I vowed silently to guard my fate with my life. I would protect us and fight for us always, and I would happily demonstrate my commitment to her in that moment.

I leaned in and brought my lips to hers. Soft. Slow. It was a whisper of a movement, barely enough to classify as a kiss. She sighed against me, her body melting into mine, her breath caressing my skin.

"Bella," I moaned against her kiss. It was just her name. But it stood for so much more. Emotion overwhelmed me. It was all I could say.

She drew her hands from mine and slowly raised her shirt up over her head. I stepped back to grant her room and to watch. She dropped it to the floor, following it with her eyes, staring at the red pile of cotton long after it settled at our feet. I lifted her chin to look up at me. The atmosphere was heavy and charged. It reminded me of our first time. I was nervous in a way I could not place - inherently understanding that the moment, the entire weekend, was significant.

Hey eyes spoke volumes. They were heavy and passionate, but also reserved. She felt whatever it was that coursed wildly through me – urgency warring with the hesitancy.

I pulled my shirt over my head and dropped it on top of hers. Her eyes swept over my bare chest and a slow smile spread across her lips. She met my eyes and we held one another's gaze for a long, drawn-out moment, no bodily contact between us.

To say we were silent would be inaccurate. Our hearts were screaming at inaudible decibels. We were communicating magnitudes.

I reached my hands out and slipped my fingers in the waist of her jeans, unbuttoning them and kneeling before her as I slid them down her legs. She braced herself on my shoulders as she slowly pulled one foot at a time from the pants. I tossed them off to the side. Silently, I nudged the inside of her thigh with the top of my head while her little fingers still gripped my shoulders lightly, asking her to raise her foot again. One after the other I pulled her socks off then stood back up and raked my eyes over her nearly naked form. She was perfect. She was exactly as she had been the first time I showed her physically how much I loved her. The excited anticipation that bubbled inside me that first time had never left. Every time I was near Bella I felt it. Every time I touched her it danced across my skin, lighting my nerve-endings on fire. And every time we made love it exploded inside me. The sensation and the emotion never waned. If anything…it broadened with each new encounter.

Bella replicated my previous actions. Her little fingers slipped into my jeans and unbuttoned the first three buttons, loosening them enough that they would have fallen to my feet of their own accord had she let go of them. However, she slid them down my legs herself, watching me carefully, then took off my socks as I balanced on one foot at a time the same way she had. She was now on her knees, her little fingers wrapped around my bare ankles, my flat, open palm rest gently atop her head, left there from stabilizing myself. My thumb twirled around a lock of hair and stroked her scalp, waiting for her to rise to her feet again.

However, she didn't. She stayed on the floor and rest her forehead against my thigh. I could see her back expanding and contracting and feel her quick breath against my leg.

"Bella?" I questioned quietly, cradling her head where it lay against my leg. When she didn't respond I slowly dropped to my knees before her. We faced one another, nearly naked, on our knees and blanketed in the increasing weight surrounding us.

Her head was bent as she bowed over the carpet. I ran my hands over her shoulders and down her arms, repeating the trail several times before I saw a tear fall from her face.

"Bella?"

I was terrified. There was such a weight on us that I couldn't rationalize. Something was just different. It was a combination of us, the emotions, the previous night's declarations, the impending separation…and something was upsetting her.

I dipped my head to peer up at her, encouraging her to look at me. I was worried for Bella. I cared for Bella. But, for once her tears did not frighten me. I was confident. For once…as I slowly guided her little face to look at mine, I was concerned, but not selfishly. I had no fear or doubt that whatever had her upset would ruin me. Bella would not hurt me. We would not hurt each other. And when she finally looked up at me, what I saw was the manifestation of the truths I was already thinking. It was beauty. It was tenderness. It was love. It was a bold determination.

It was my best friend, my partner, my lover…my Bella.

"We can do this, Edward," she whispered in a broken voice. "We can. I can love you like this. This isn't just sex."

My heart crashed inside me but lifted back up almost instantaneously at her words. I pressed my lips to hers. The kiss was gentle but powerful.

"We _are_ doing this," I growled in a broken and hushed voice when we eventually separated. Holding her head in my palms firmly, my thumbs rubbing against her cheekbones and our faces inches apart, I unloaded everything in my heart without any further hesitation one more time.

_Reassurances._

"I will be the best thing that ever happened to you Isabella Marie Swan. I will cherish you. We are doing this."

I picked her up and turned toward the bed. I lay down with her beneath me, kissing her with everything I had while her little body trembled with emotion and passion. We finished undressing and when she was finally naked before me I paused. I sat back on my heels and looked at her. Her eyes were closed in anticipation. Her fingers were twisted in the sheets, clenching. Her chest rose and fell steadily – not frantically – peacefully, and her little pink nipples begged to be touched. Her bare legs were bent and open, waiting for me. When she didn't feel me return to her after a moment her eyes slowly fluttered open, questioning.

"I love you," I whispered. It was the only thought in my mind.

I love her.

She smiled. Her eyelids were heavy. "Show me," she whispered.

I returned her smile, climbing over the top of her warm and naked body, feeling jolts of the familiar electricity ricocheting through me at each point of contact. My wrist as it touched the top of her shoulder when I braced myself next to her head. My chest as it pushed against hers with each heavy, anticipatory, wavering breath. My hips as they slid along her body, finally settling against hers. My knees where they brushed against the delicate skin on the inside of her leg. The toes on my right foot as they tangled with hers. And my lips. My lips whispered over hers, and her cheek, and toward her ear – nuzzling, kissing, and feeling – absorbing the energy between us greedily. Feasting on her.

"Baby…I wish there were words for how much you mean to me," I said, my voice coming out in choppy, thick spurts. She moaned at both my words and, because as I spoke, I was slowly moving around the wetness between her legs with myself. It was her want for me, the call to fill her void with pieces of me. I pushed in and out of her opening, nuzzling my face deeper into her shoulder, trying fervently to bury every part of me inside her. Her legs wrapped around my waist and locked, her thighs trembled against my hips.

I brought the hand that was not carrying my weight off of her little body down to her hip. I gripped it, just firm enough to relay the need I felt for her. Firm enough to lift her off the bed the inches in took to drive me into her fully. Bella cried out as I slid into her in one fluid movement. Sparking the electricity through us. I squeezed my eyes shut against the sensation, adjusting slowly, waiting for it to not overtake me. My entire body shuddered against hers. Her fingers wrapped around my wrist at her head, tugging, wanting me to lay my full weight on her. She loved feeling my body against hers. Heavy, firm and real. I knew that about her.

_I know everything about her…  
_

I dropped myself to her and released my locked arm, sliding my hand under her back and cradling her against me. Using my elbows to distribute much of my burden, I slowly rocked in and out of her, liquid fire rippling through us both with each connection. Sighs quickly became mewls, which transitioned into whimpers, and finally moans and loud cries as the sensations took over.

I trailed kisses, hot and wet, from behind her ear, down her neck and over her collar bone. I held her tightly to me and only relented the space necessary for me to dip my head down and suckle one perfect little rose-coloured nipple into my mouth. I washed my tongue over the peak and sucked, then scraped my teeth against it, but did not bite down. Bella cried out loudly and her back arched, driving her nipple further into my mouth and my cock further into her body…which made me cry out. Her sharp little nails were digging into the flesh of my shoulders while her teeth did the same to her bottom lip. I glanced up from under my eyelashes to see the poor lip held prisoner. I raised my head and ran the tip of my tongue along the edge of her lip that was folded into her teeth and then took it in mine. I pulled at it until her eyes snapped open, met mine, and she released her lip. I smirked and while holding her gaze at the most intimate proximity, placed a tender, healing kiss on her lower lip where the dark marks from her teeth were. Our lips parted and rest against one another's, taking and giving the air the other was breathing in, I moved out and then slowly back into her. I pushed in deep and she opened her legs wider, allowing me to enter deeper, intensifying the already overwhelming sensations controlling us. We whimpered at the same time, eyes locked each other, mouths pressed together but not kissing. Her body shook.

I watched her, intently as I moved inside her. Our faces were pressed so close together that I could feel the tickling ends of her eyelashes on my cheekbone every time she blinked. And still I watched. Like our first time, I was watching her carefully. That first night I had studied her eyes, her lips, and her jaw for any sign of discomfort. I spent the next five years absorbing everything I could about her. I knew every sound, every twitch, and every sigh. I knew the entire reason behind each shudder and whimper. I knew what felt good for her and what would pull her over the edge. There was no longer anything nervous or unsure in our lovemaking.

And…I watched.

Lovemaking is intimate in nature. Everything about it is personal. But lovemaking while staring into one your partner's eyes, noticing the inflection in every moan and the tremble at the corner of their eyes each time a fresh wave of sensation crashes down...that was the definition of intimate. The beautiful power. The entire reason lovers exist.

Bella raised her arms over her head and fisted her hands into the pillows around her. Her head was thrown back, eyes shut. Her back arched and she began panting and mewling. I felt her body stiffen and her insides begin to tighten around me. My own climax was balancing precariously on the knife edge of hers, waiting for her to cum first. Acting off pure lust and desire, I pulled my arms out from underneath her and brought my hands to her face. I cupped her cheeks and forced her to look me right in the eyes, subsequently collapsing all my weight onto her and driving myself very deep into her body.

"Look at me. I want to watch you," I whispered holding her face tightly an inch from mine. I stared into her eyes as she exploded around me, crumbling into the most beautiful bits and pieces with the pleasure I harvested in her. She didn't fight my hands as I held her head forward, she trusted me enough to be that vulnerable. I quickly shattered as well. While she floated on the tail end of her pleasure she watched me come undone with mine, a slow smile stretching across her face. When the last wave left me and did not return for more, I released her little head from my grip and sank against her, burying my face into the crook of her neck, still whimpering from a mind-blowing orgasm.

There was no shame in our lovemaking – no judgement or calculations.

Bella's body, warm, sated, and limp, lay draped across mine, our legs tangled and her head rest on my chest above my heart as it beat out slow, rhythmic pulses, swelling and aching simultaneously. She sighed and murmured in her sleep as I swept my fingertips up and down the length of her bare spine, feeling each bump and divot. Slowly savouring her skin and warmth. I stared out the window above her tiny bed and let my eyes blur over as sleep tried desperately to pull me under. But I fought. I didn't want to spend the rest of my time with Bella unconscious. I stared at the white, pale moon against the ink-coloured sky, glowering at it – pleading, praying, silently weeping…willing the fucking sun not to rise and take me away from that moment, from that purity. From the only thing in life that I would ever need or want or crave or worship…

From Bella.

My plane was to depart at 7:20am. I had planned to set the alarm on my cell to wake me in time to get up and call a cab and get me to the airport, but it all proved superfluous as I failed to let the waves of sleep tow me in. I stayed awake all night, holding the peaceful, angelic piece of perfection that somehow the universe had blessed me with in my arms. I whispered a thousand promises into her slumbering ear and lightly ran my fingers through her hair and over her skin.

When the time came for me to crawl out of bed I felt the loss of her warmth immediately, in many more ways than one. Sadness crept in on me as I pulled a pair of jeans on and buttoned them up, never allowing my eyes to drift from Bella. With a heart manufactured of lead I knelt beside her bed and stroked her cheek, whispering to her until her eyes fluttered and she smiled at me.

It took a moment, but eventually dawning crashed into her like a wrecking ball as she noticed the sombre expression on my face and the tears building in my eyes. "No!" she shouted and wrapped her arms around my neck. My heart clenched and dropped like the iron weight it was into the empty pit of my stomach. I clung to her as tightly as she did to me. I felt her tears soaking through the cotton of my tee shirt at my shoulder.

"I know, Bella, I know…" I kept murmuring, hoping to ease an ounce of her pain with the acknowledgement that I was feeling the same heartache. "There's a cab outside. I really have to go, I'm cutting it really close as it is." Stupid. Irrelevant. Insignificant details…

"Then just don't go. Please… Edward?" Bella begged, sobbing, knowing that I could not stay but pleading with me any way.

"Bella. God… I wish…" I trailed off, my voice hiccupping as I fought against everything in my heart to find the strength to walk away…even if it was just for a few months.

"I'm sorry. I know. You have to go. They don't hand doctorates out to just anyone." She swallowed thickly, choking back her instinct to cling to me and putting on a brave face. "Go…make me proud." She sat up and sat crossed-legged on the edge of her bed, completely unphased by the fact that she was still naked.

Still on my knees, I reached out and wrapped my hand around the back of her head and pulled her against my chest, hugging her tightly. I kissed the top of her head. "Someday Bella… we won't have to always be saying good-bye. I promise."

"I know," she whispered looking up at me. "Until then…go. I love you."

I smirked and suppressed a sombre chuckle which would not yet have made any sense to her.

"I love you too, Bella. More than you know."

I stood and grabbed my messenger, slinging it over my shoulder and smiling weakly at my naked, glorious, devastated girlfriend sitting on the bed that was still warm from our bodies. I didn't even make it to the bottom of the stairs before she came running after me, a sheet wrapped haphazardly around her small frame, dragging like a train behind her. She crashed into me and wrapped her arms around my neck, the sheet staying in place between our bodies. She pressed her lips against mine enthusiastically and shook with sobs.

"I wish this weekend could have lasted forever. I wish it never ended," she whispered between cries. I had to grind my back molars together and lock my jaw tight in order to prevent myself from weeping like a fool as she held on to me and I carried her the remaining two stairs to the front door. I pressed her up against the wall behind the door and held her there, returning her kiss with every molecule of passion in my body. I cradled her head in my hands, my forehead resting against hers.

Eventually we broke apart, slowly, regrettably, and I opened the door, walked down the walkway and climbed into the cab like I was made of wood. I didn't even have it in me to care that the cab driver muttered something inappropriate about how sexy Bella was with her hair wild about her face, clutching a sheet to her chest and leaning against the open doorframe. I winked at her and shut the cab door. Our eyes stayed glued to one another's through the glass until we could see each other no more.

As the plane engines roared and hummed beneath me, my heart clenched, sputtered and sank. Tears filled my eyes and I couldn't muster up enough shame to care if the older man in a suit seated next to me saw once they finally began rolling down my cheeks while I stared unseeingly at the back of the headrest. The only consolation, the only thing interrupting the heart-splitting pain, was the image I was conjuring up in my mind's eye of Bella in that sheet closing the door behind me and peering into her living room. I knew she would feel empty; see me there as I had been for four days, and she would ache. I wanted to ease the aching even if I couldn't be there for her.

I smiled at the headrest imagining Bella noticing the bright, beautiful robin's egg blue satin ribbon that had been wrapped around the ornate little ricotta cheese jar from the night before. As it was, it was tied around a white envelope and held with a magnet to the whiteboard above the couch – an open-ended plane ticket from Phoenix to New York City inside. She would reach out to grab it with a sad, excited smile on her beautiful face, her tiny fingers closing carefully around the edges of the envelope to pull it down and open it…and that would be when she would notice my artwork.

Sometime just before the sun came up, I had rolled over and rummaged through my messenger bag that leaned against the wall by Bella's little bed. I found a Sharpie and wrote a message to Bella along the entire inside length of her slumbering forearm as it lay peacefully draped across my bare chest. I wrote from the bend in her elbow to the palm of her hand, where once finished, I placed the most tender, sincere kiss my lips had ever created into her open, limp palm. The marker would not last forever – it would fade eventually – but my hope was that the words would be with her long enough that she would never again doubt or forget them.

I love you

* * *

Told you so.

Right?

GAH!

You have no idea how many tears I shed while writing and editing this.

And I don't mean over the formatting.

I love, LOVE.

Again. Thank you all for your support and your kind words. I'm glad everyone is finding the warmth and fluff in this story as comforting and necessary as I am.

~xox~


	16. Traditions

Holy hell you guys!

I want to thank you all so much for all the reviews and love, its blows me away, truly.

The girls on the Robstenlove(dot)com forum amaze me. Thank you.

And furthermore... Suzyq402 and Edwardsbloodtype astound me. Thank you both. Suzy has been so generous with her time and affection, and has graciously created a forum thread for this story over at Twilighted because she knows how forum inept I am.

http://www(dot)twilighted(dot)net/forum/viewtopic(dot)php?f=44&t=9942&p=1018820&hilit=erinbatt+secret+sex&sid=38c73c1a9d5bbc91cc3af7efd151cf0c#p1018820

There's the link if you fill in the dot's. Come play with us over there anytime, it's sure to be fun!

Wow...so much for a simple one/shot, hey?

*shrugs*

Enjoy the lemons, don't worry, its pretty wussperv friendly.

Air

* * *

I was hollow.

Utterly depleted of any spark to indicate to those around me that I was a living, breathing human. I wasn't. In that moment I was a soulless man with a broken, throbbing heart. Everything that made me who I was had been left back in Phoenix. I had nothing…except the seemingly infinite space between the moment I walked off plane and the next time I would be walking off a plane and into Bella's arms – which was three weeks.

I tried desperately to convince myself that I would, despite the odds, make it through the coming weeks of hell…but there wasn't a pep talk in the world that I could offer myself in that lonely and isolated moment that would be strong enough to help. I reasoned with myself that the next day I needed to try and view things with a more appropriate perspective, that it wasn't truly the end of the world. But until then, I planned to allow myself the rest of the night to wallow and sulk, remembering the warm feel of Bella's fingertips dragging a trail of fire across my skin and the taste her sweet scent on the back of my tongue as it permeated my nostrils.

Everything was wrong. I was thousands of miles from my love and best friend, and that was wrong. I was headed to a cold and dark apartment that had no sign of life or love in it, and that was wrong. I had no one to talk about everything that was truly in my heart and no one to cry to, and that was wrong. And I was going to go crawl into a bed with cold, stiff sheets and hug a fucking pillow to my chest because that was all that would be in bed with me, and that…that was a tragedy.

I flipped my phone on and was admittedly upset to discover no messages or missed calls from Bella.

Then my phone buzzed in my palm.

"Hey," I choked into the receiver, my emotions having a vice grip on my vocal chords.

"You landed," she whispered.

"Just now."

"I was waiting. I didn't want to cry into your voicemail," she explained.

My heart lurched. Every gear switched instantly – innately – my own pain forgotten while I focused on soothing Bella.

"Please, don't cry," I begged in a firm tone, yet still only marginally above a whisper. It was too late. Distinct sobbing sounds emanated from the other end of the phone. It was times such as that, when Bella was hurting and needed me, that the space between us seemed insurmountable. There were a thousand un-navigateable universes piled between us, when all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and cradle her to my chest. To tuck her little head gently under my chin and hold onto my life with everything I had. And I couldn't. I couldn't so much as wipe away a single tear with my fingertips or hold her hand.

"Okay. I won't. I'm fine." Bella snivelled into the receiver.

"Isabella. You have many talents, but lying is not one of them. So please, baby, please…for me…don't cry. I can't tell you how much it ruins my heart to hear you crying over a goddamn phone and there isn't a thing I can do about it." I blew out a firm, laboured breath. "I love you," I added so she would understand I was just frustrated and not upset with her in any way.

I had stopped where I was when the phone rang, which was somewhere in the south terminal of the airport, and leaned against a pillar to talk. I sank down against it until I was sitting on my heels. I cradled the phone to the side of my face, which was a sorry replacement for Bella, and plead with her not to cry for me – or over me, or because of me.

It was early evening and nothing but pitch black poured in from the wall of windows along the airport terminals. An elderly woman was sitting by herself at the gate in front of me, watching my display and listening to my pleas with a distant look of appreciation and compassion.

"I love you too, Edward," Bella was whispering into the phone, clearly trying to hold back her tears. "Every girl should be so lucky to have a friend like you."

_Wait. What? _The word stung after all the progress we had made over the weekend.

"Bella…" I began, but she promptly cut me off.

"Edward, the words you wrote on my arm. They're in my heart, and they always have been. It just hurts so bad, because they are so true. So...so...true. I love you with everything I have. I don't know how to not love you. Of course you are not just my friend, that goes without saying, but still…" She paused to take a steadying breath, I heard her swallow rigidly on the other line. "I feel like when it comes down to it, Edward, our friendship is exactly what makes us so strong. That's what makes this so powerful, this thing between you and I, this….love. And that will be what gets us through. Our friendship. It's the foundation. It's what every good relationship is built on. And you are the best friend anyone could ever ask for. You amaze me in your thoughtfulness and your gestures. I've literally been sitting her for the last seven hours thinking about how grateful I am for you. How I truthfully don't know what I would have ever done without you. There were so many things I would have never found the lone strength to survive, but you instilled such a hope and love and power in me that it pulled me through…everything…always. You have pulled me through everything, Edward. We can pull each other through the next few years. We can."

Tears were rolling unabashedly down my cheeks as she floored me yet again. Bella always had such a poetic way with words. She continually amazed me. The old woman walked over to me and handed me a cotton tissue with pink flowers stitched around its edges as I stared out the black windows across the aisle. I took it and smiled weakly at her. The woman looked at me as if she saw the words for every emotion I was feeling written plainly across my face. I was not ashamed. I was grateful. She nodded and pat the top of me head, my crazed hair sticking up on end from the day of tugging and travel. She silently returned to her seat and I tried to formulate the words in my head for the girl on the other end of the phone that deserved my best.

"Isabella," I groaned, the pulsing in my heart growing. "Use the tickets soon. I beg you." My voice cracked on the last word.

"Tonight?"

"Don't tease me. You have no idea what a wreck I am right now."

"Yes I do."

"Of course you do," I sighed.

"Thank you, Edward. For the tickets, for the handwriting, for the entire weekend. For everything that you did and said – it was by far the very best weekend of my life."

_Mine too._

"Better than the weekend in Santa Monica?" I asked, trying to alleviate some of the gravity of the conversation.

The summer before our junior year in high school my parents had taken us to Santa Monica for four days. Charlie joined us, and Emmett came along even though he was starting university that year. It was a wonderful weekend full of excellent food, laughs, and so many vivid, warm memories. One that stood out in my mind was a night trip to the pier, where after way too much Carmel corn, Bella and I decided to ride the Ferris wheel.

Of course, it was months before our relationship would forever be altered, but our friendship was noticeably thickening in ways that we did not, could not, appreciate at the time. We rode the Ferris wheel together three times in a row, staring out at the black night accentuated by the vibrant neons of the carnival and the twinkling coastal city lights in the distance. The ocean crashed and roared while the laughter and pinging noises from the carnival games swirled in the air around us every time we neared the ground, then receded again as we left it all behind. We held hands in the little teacup as we talked and laughed with one another. The action was natural and not something either of us put any thought into. Yet somehow, five and a half years later, I could still feel the whirl of excitement that spun through me as I held her hand and peered over at her while her hair whipped around her face from the wind, the neon lights created a soft, pink-tinged halo around her, and her eyes sparkled. It was a moment that would forever be burned into my memory. It was a fantastic weekend for that and so many other reasons. It was a weekend that I knew Bella often cited as one of her favourite as well – which was why I chose it.

"Oh my god, Edward. Do you remember how sunburned I got that first day. God that hurt." The diversion tactic seemed to work. Her tone was perceptibly lighter, which I was grateful for. It was all I could do for her at the time.

"Yeah, well…do you remember when both me and dad told you to put sunscreen on?" I joked, knowing what she was going to say next. It was a repartee we had gone over a hundred times since then every time she tried to go outside without protection.

"I forgot!" she wailed, traces of laughter around her words.

I chuckled into the phone then sighed heavily. "It was okay, the plus side was that you had to wear your bathing suit top under everything you wore instead of a bra for the rest of the trip," I whispered with a smile on my face, recalling.

She gasped. "Edward! You never told me you noticed that." She was giggling, the sound was beautiful. It helped to gently lift my spirit up off the cold floor and help it stand it on its own two feet again.

"I notice everything about you, Isabella. Back then and always."

"I love you, Edward. I know you have class tomorrow, but maybe message me whenever you get a sec."

"Bella. You will be lucky if I can make it into the cab before filling up your inbox."

"Feel free."

"I love you, too, Bella.

"Can I call you later this week?"

"You can call me anytime you like."

"Okay. Goodnight," she breathed into the receiver. I didn't want to hang up yet.

"Goodnight. Sweet dreams, Bella."

The elderly woman had boarded her flight. I guess I was the proud owner of an ancient, embroidered hanky with roses on it.

The weeks went by, but not quickly enough. I think I spoke to Bella every day, sometimes more than once. But luckily I was paying my own cell bill so the exchange would not be as obvious as before. Or…unluckily, considering it was sure to be astronomical. I also leaned on my father more than I ever thought I would. Because he knew. And he would sit silently in the den and listen to me whine and complain and profess my love for Bella anytime he called to check in on me, which was much more than usual. He was solid in those weeks. He was everything my dad always was. Secure, confident, supportive, and kind. He was non-judgemental and offered many words of wisdom.

For example, I hadn't known, or perhaps the parallel had just never dawned on me, that when he was in his final year of med school he had to do his practicum at UCLA, away from my mother. Emmett was a baby. My father suffered greatly. My mother longed for him. He returned and never left her side again. He knew exactly how I felt. My father never ceased to amaze me. How many different ways could one man be my hero?

Then the day I waited for was finally upon me. I was once again at the airport, walking cheerfully past the pillar that had once seen me fall before it, devastated. This time I had a bounce in my step and a smile on my face as I headed toward the gate that housed the plane that would bring me home.

I was on the phone with Bella as I approached my terminal.

"So, what are you doing tonight?" I asked.

"Well. Right now I am packing up some lasagne that I made for Charlie for his dinner tonight at the station because he's working an over-nighter. Then I'm going to freeze the rest and start in on the Chicken Catetori that I will also be freezing for him."

"Wild night. Easy tiger," I joked, laughing and feeling lighter than I had in weeks. It felt good. Every step I took brought me closer to Bella, and subsequently eased the angst that had been pricking at my insides.

"Oh yeah, you know me," she purred, intending to be funny, but the sound flooded through me.

_I do know you._

"I have to go, Bella. I need to check in at the counter, I board in a few minutes."

"Okay, have a safe flight." I could picture the smile on her face given the amount of sunshine that was pouring out through her voice.

"Hey?" I said thickly, switching gears.

"Yes?"

"Wait up for me."

"Every night."

I checked in with a smile on my face.

On the other end of the flight my parents picked me up at the little airport and we grabbed dinner on the way home. I was antsy and really just wanted to go see Bella. I loved my mother and father, they were the best parents any kid could ever ask for, if not better, and I knew how lucky I was. But when you are twenty-two and madly in love with a woman whom you rarely see…time spent with her tended to trump everything. But nonetheless, I answered every question my mother had about how my Masters was coming along, how New York was, how _everything _else was. She was eyeing me funny and I darted my eyes over to my dad in accusation. He shrugged and scowled in equal confusion, shaking his head lightly, so I looked back to my mother.

"What?" she asked innocently. "I just mean, how is your life outside of school and work in New York, that's all." She grinned at me and I knew she knew something. I just didn't know what. If it wasn't for the odd manner is which the subject was being breeched I would have gladly confessed to dating Bella and had that be the end of it, but she was acting weird.

"Life in New York is extremely lonely, actually," I grumbled, my eyes on hers. She smiled, pat my hand that was outstretched on the tabletop and asked me and dad if we were ready to go. Dad and I exchanged a quick look, and then nodded in unison.

On the way home I sat with my head resting against the car door window in the back seat, staring out into the black night as the heavy rain beat against the glass. I was exhausted and the hum of the car was lulling me to sleep.

I perked up when I realised dad had taken a right where he should have continued straight on the road toward our house. He was taking me to Bella's. I smiled and saw him glance into the back seat at me through the rear-view mirror, his eyes shining. Mom reached out and laced her fingers into his where his arm lay on top of the middle divider. She definitely knew something.

The car stopped and I leaned forward in between their seats, grabbing each headrest to pull myself up. I kissed my mother on the cheek and told her how much I loved her, and pat my dad on the shoulder, then jumped out the car into the pouring rain. I bolted to the cover of the front porch, noticing the distinct lack of police cruiser in the driveway as I did so. My smile widened even further.

I tried the front door. Unlocked. Shocking. I seriously hoped Bella had better sense in Tempe when she was home alone. I knocked as I opened the door. I began to call out Bella's name, but as I got the door opened all the way I saw her turn toward me from half way up the stairs carrying a laundry basket. She literally dropped it from her hands at the same time that I ran up the stairs to meet her. The basket rolled down at me and I tripped over it, kicked it the rest of the way down the stairs, sending clean laundry scattering everywhere, then swore at it as I wrapped my arms around my giggling, squealing girlfriend. She jumped up into my arms and locked her legs around my waist, crushing her lips to mine.

I moaned long and needy into her mouth as her lips worked together and our tongues met. I cupped her ass to hold her to me. She was in a tank top and a pair of lace underwear that barely covered half of each ass cheek as I palmed the warm flesh. She squirmed in my arms, trying to inch herself closer to me tugging at the back of my hair and holding on tighter. She writhed against me so much that I lost my balance. I had to step backward onto the step below me to keep from falling down the stairs. But my foot got tangled in a pair of jeans that was part of the spilled laundry that littered the stairwell from the toppled and forgotten basket. I tripped and fell forward, cradling Bella against me and reaching out an arm to catch us on the steps. Bella's back hit the stairs and she groaned but didn't pull away from me, her thighs still clamped tight around my hips.

I muttered a string of profanities, my tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth as I grumbled. She sucked on it, opening her eyes and peering into mine as we kissed. I forgot what I was muttering about in the first place. She raked her teeth across my upper lip, holding it between hers and nipping at it lightly. It sent a delicious wave of heat through me.

I ran my palms down the sides of her body, over her ribs and down to her hips. I slipped the fingers of my right hand into the waistband of her panties and slid them along the band against her stomach, feeling it tremble beneath my touch. Goose bumps appeared on her skin. I kissed along her jawline and under it, in the soft, tender areas that she would have to tilt her head to the side to grant me access to, giving me permission to both take and give simultaneously. She did.

Her hair was loose and wet as if she had just gotten out of the shower and it smelled amazing. It was the scent of fragrant strawberries that I would forever associate with Bella…being wet. The ends were still damp enough that beads of water were dripping from them and landing on my left forearm where it lay underneath her head, protecting her from the sharp edges of the steps below. The droplets ran down my arm, tickling the skin as the ice-cold water met the fiery-hot flesh. The back of her grey tank top was saturated and if I wasn't busy trying to shove my dick in her through the annoyingly present denim and cotton barriers I would have lectured her about her carelessness in the drafty house. As it was, I let the issue go.

Instead, I tugged roughly at her panties until they moved down far enough that I could touch her, not finding the strength inside myself to be as gentle as I wanted to be. Her fingers made their way to my jeans and began popping open the buttons on the fly, reaching inside and palming the raging beast that was begging to come out and play. Poor thing. It really missed Bella.

She wrapped her fingers around me and squeezed, stroking her palm upward and then returning down. My legs quaked. I was lucky I was already on my knees, because the feel of her little hand wrapped around me felt so fucking good that I would have dropped to my knees regardless. She moaned as she stroked me and it was simply one of the sexiest things she had ever done, given that I wasn't kissing her at that moment, let alone doing anything else. That moan was pure pleasure derived from pleasing me.

She pulled her knees up toward her chest and wrapped her feet around my waist, pushing my jeans down as far as she could get them. My fingers, still tugging at her panties, had given up trying to move them further, they were not going to go down her legs as long as she had them open that wide and drawn up to her chest, so I shoved the them aside and brought two fingertips to her centre. She was dripping wet already and I groaned as I touched her. I looked down at her under heavy eyelids, but she was not looking at me. She was looking at my fingers, trying to peer at them from around her panties that were blocking her view. She reached down and lay her hand over mine, threading her fingers through mine. She moaned and pushed with her hand until my middle finger and index finger, sandwiching hers, pushed into her warm wetness, needing relief urgently.

Three fingers was a lot inside Bella, I rarely did it myself she was so fucking tight, but lucky for her, her fingers were tiny. She manipulated our hands to pump in and at a pace that suited her best. She moaned and bit her lip, her free hand running over her ribs and toying with her breast through her tank. I watched, growing harder by the second. She pressed her head against the stair it rest on, her eyes squeezed shut, whimpering my name repeatedly. I gently rubbed the pad of my thumb over her clit in soft circles, and curled and twisted the fingers that were inside of her, which spurred her muted whimpers to turn into full blown cries.

Bella's hand trailed back down her ribs to me. She released me from my jeans and boxers as she shoved them further down toward my knees. I was at full attention and if we both pushed the right way at the same time I would press into the perfect place, just below our hands and their ministrations. Each time I rubbed against her I would groan and my face would twitch with suppressed pleasure.

Bella opened her eyes and peeked up at me. She withdrew her finger, pulling my hand out with hers. She reached down and grabbed me – but she didn't just grab me. Her warm, little palm cupped my balls as she dragged her palm forward, carefully holding them, rolling them, and her outstretched middle finger slid along the smooth skin underneath. She began stroking me with the fingers that were already slick with her own moisture. I ground my teeth together to keep from screaming out from the sensations and the sight of her. My hand that was bracing my weight lifted and struck back down forcefully on the step. I almost came on the spot. I definitely growled out loud.

She lifted one leg and kicked until she had freed it from the leg hole of her panties. I wrapped my hands around her hips and forced her up off the step and onto me. In one smooth motion, I buried myself inside her. She stretched around me and then constricted, holding onto me. So tight.

I bore most of my weight on my knees and I held her body close to mine, practically kneeling upright off the steps so that she would not be hurt by me pounding her into them. She locked her ankles behind my back and screamed as I cupped her ass and lifted and dropped her at regular, smooth intervals onto me. Her face was burrowed into the crook of my neck and her wet hair was twisted around my arm and dripped down my chest and shoulder. Her tank was completely soaked through and her pert little nipples were poking out through the thin grey fabric, their beautiful rose colouring showing through. I lowered my head down and flicked my tongue over one. I intended to stop at that, given they were shielded by the material, but once I felt the hard buds under my tongue I wanted more. I drew her into my mouth through her tank and sucked. She moaned and tugged at my hair, bucking her hips beneath me. I snaked one arm underneath her as much as I could so that I could free the other while still shielding her from the wrath of the sharp steps. I yanked her shirt up and returned to her breasts, cupping one and suckling at the other.

I pumped in and out of her; several times sliding and getting twisted in the piles of clothing that surrounded us and twisted my feet together. I used my free hand to push back her wild hair from her face and kiss her lips gently. It was the familiar dichotomy that we always brought to the table. As Bella had so beautifully stated herself, even if our actions were carnal, our touches were always soft and sincere.

My lips were the definition of soft as they slipped across hers like silk, the sound and breath of our lovemaking fluttering between us. I held onto the top of her thigh with my free hand and stretched my thumb out to meet her clit and rubbed slowly in practiced little circles just around it, never hard and never directly over it, she didn't like that. I used the moisture that was quickly increasing between her legs to help glide my thumb smoothly over the swollen, throbbing area. She panted even louder, ending in a whiny whimper and holding onto me tight. I felt her clench inside and her thighs locked against my hips as the whimpers again crescendoed into cries, followed by a lengthy moan and a bite down at the junction of my shoulder and neck to quiet herself. Apparently, we had abandoned the gentle aspect for a moment as she bit me hard, muffling her cries as wave after wave of pleasure rippled through her, causing her to tremble in my arms. The sharp, almost painful, tugs at my gut had strengthened by listening to her cum, moaning and screaming in my ear, her chest heaving against mine. It spurred me on and soon the sharp pieces in my belly exploded and ricocheted through my veins as I came hard, pouring everything I had into her and crying out her name.

After every wave had left my body and the fatigue came crashing back on me tenfold, I sat Bella down, legs still open on either side of me with half of her panties still on, onto the step above me. I pulled her underwear the rest of the way down her legs, freeing her of them, because it was easier than righting them. My knees weakened and the exhaustion buckled them as I collapsed flat against the stairs on my belly. My jeans and boxers had been shoved almost all the way off of me during our interactions and I kicked them the rest of the way down, shoving my shoes off with them. The cold air assaulted the bare skin of my ass and legs but I was too bagged to care. I lay my head against Bella's open thigh and looped my arms around her waist. She bent down and kissed the top of my head and leaned against the wall, her cheek resting on my head. My eyes felt like lead weights were pulling them down. I knew we should get up. I knew we were half naked. I knew Bella's hair was still dripping wet and it was goddamn cold on that stairwell. But the tides of sleep fought harder than I did.

The last thing I remembered before floating away was Bella whispering, "Hi, by the way," as she stroked my hair and placed a soft kiss against my forehead.

The next thing I knew it was really fucking cold. And a blinding light was illuminating the stairwell and bouncing around off the walls of the living room and foyer. Bella sat up, groaning and clutching her neck and I held onto her hips, pulling myself upright. It took less than a second for both of us to comprehend that we had fallen asleep, essentially naked on the stairs at the mouth of the foyer in front of the door. That the door was left open, that laundry was scattered everywhere, and that those were Charlie's fucking cruiser headlights pulling into the driveway that woke us up. Panic and adrenaline shot through both of us as we bolted to our feet, muttering every profane word imaginable. A few times Bella said something that despite my panic made me stop dead in my tracks and stare at her with wide eyes. It was amusing considering that she rarely, if ever, swore.

Bella was pulling on a pair of sweatpants that had been in the laundry basket and I, ass-fucking-naked from the waist down, was throwing clothing everywhere trying to find my boxers and jeans in the piles of abandoned clothing.

The cruiser door shut and the sound tightened an ice cold fist around my stomach. I was so fucked.

"Edward," Bella hissed at me as if I was standing around drumming my fucking fingertips on the railing with my hand on my hip, just waiting to greet her father with my dick hanging against my thigh for fun. I glared a death-gaze at her and she rolled her eyes, understanding that I was obviously _trying _to locate my jeans.

I eventually found them ,but the boxers had vanished. I didn't care. There was a crunch of feet grinding into the gravel that lead to the front walk. I pulled them up and fumbled with shaking, really fucking panicking hands, cursing the button fly.

It was one thing to say, "Listen, Chief Swan, I am madly in love with your daughter and I promise to cherish her forever if she'll let me." It was quite another to fuck the shit out of her on his stairwell and then have him catch us.

Bella had thrown most of the laundry back into the hamper and was balancing the basket on her hip when Charlie's footsteps came clamouring up the porch and toward the open doorway. I shoved my feet into my shoes and bent over to quickly cram my finger into the backs of each and pop the heel of the shoe up. I was standing back up just as Charlie wrapped his fingers around the edge of the open door and walked through, eyeing it with the critical eye of a trained professional, instantly leery.

_Fuck. So, so fucked…_

I plead with my beating heart to slow and not betray me as I cleared my throat, then realised too late that that was a sure "tell" of someone who was either guilty or nervous or both. I cursed myself silently and took a deep steadying breath.

"Hey, dad," Bella chirped as he slowly entered into the crowded foyer. Bella bent down and gathered up the last few bits of laundry that remained at our feet as if it had merely fallen over the edge of the basket in the most innocent fashion. But her and I both knew that there was nothing innocent about what that stairwell had seen. And in her hand she held the boxers that until that moment she hadn't realised I wasn't wearing. She flushed and crammed them deep into the basket of laundry. I closed my eyes and lightly shook my head at the horror and absurdity of the situation, before opening them and greeting Charlie with a tight, guilt-ridden voice that he was sure to see through.

He nodded curtly but otherwise ignored me. "Why is the front door open, Bells?" he demanded in his firm, all-business Charlie tone.

"Because, Edward literally just got here." She replied smoothly. I almost believed her – it sounded logical, my plane could have just landed. I smiled at her, impressed, nodding in dumb corroboration. Thank god Bella had kept her shit together, because all I could do was stare at Charlie's gun belt with wide, unblinking eyes.

"Little late for a house call isn't it?" Charlie had this voice that he sometimes used, I was familiar with it, after all, I _had _grown up with him as some sort of an extended family member. It was a combination of his firm police-officer tone and his intentionally drawn out, skeptical fatherly voice. The combination spoke volumes every time he used it, coating his spoken words with a thick layer of "I don't believe a goddamn word you are saying"…needless to say, he was using that tone.

I smiled at him and briefly wondered what my hair looked like. It was too long and I was in desperate need of a haircut. The shock of copper stood on end on a "good" day, I didn't want to know what I-just-fucked-my-girlfriend-on-the-stairs-then-passed-out-against-her-naked-body hair looked like, especially in Chief Swan's eyes.

"Well," I drew the word out, rubbing my palms against the thighs of my jeans roughly. "I better get going." I took a few steps toward the door that Charlie was still standing in. He didn't move.

"I thought you said you just go here?" His eyes didn't blink as they met mine and stayed. His head tilted ever so slightly to the side.

"Well, like you said, its pretty late. I just came by to say hi." My voice had regained its composure. "So…hi, by the way," I purred, mimicking Bella's words from earlier.

Judging from the deepening shade of crimson creeping across her cheeks she knew I said it intentionally. I chuckled under my breath and moved past Charlie.

"Goodnight, Chief Swan," I said, slapping him on the shoulder, relaxing as I squeezed past him and through the threshold to the exit, tasting freedom and living to see another day. I heard Charlie snort and mutter behind me as I took the first step off the porch.

"Edward?" Bella's voice called from inside the house. I turned just as she appeared in the doorway, shoving her dad to the side with a cute and feisty smirk. He grumbled and slowly walked off. "Call me in the morning," she cooed, leaning against the doorway and twirling a still-damp piece of hair around her little finger. She was adorable. I tried really fucking hard not to stare at the way her nipples were protruding through the thin cotton of her tank top.

"How about I call you as soon as I get in the car?" I winked at her. She peered over her shoulder and back into the house quickly, then ran out onto the porch – barefoot. The wooden plank boards had to have been freezing underneath her sensitive, little feet. I grimaced at her. But she placed the softest most innocent peck on my lips, then darted back into the house and shut the door behind her. I smiled after her for a moment then turned back and hopped off the last two steps.

Then froze.

"Fuck," I muttered, raking my hand through my hair, feeling it going every which direction. I shook my head at my obvious stupidity, looking back at the house – that contained the police officer and his daughter – and kicked at a stray stone that was on the walkway.

I fished into my pants pocket for my cell and flipped it open.

"Jasper? Can you come get me?"

The next few days went by smoothly. Jasper finally stopped snickering at me. Alice stopped asking me if I knew why he had to leave in the middle of the night. Which pissed me off because while mom and dad agreed to let Jasper stay over during the holidays since his parents announced they were spending Christmas on the beach now that all their kids were grown, they did _not _say that he could sleep in Alice's room - which clearly he was. Mom washed the guestroom sheets especially for him. I was sure she would be upset to find out it was a waste of her time…I knew I was. But the guy did do me a huge favour after I was totally fucking stranded, so I bit my tongue…hard.

Also, to my surprise, Charlie had not said anything snarky to me since the last time I saw him. I was certain that he noticed the lack of Cullen automobiles in his driveway when he parked that night, but he if he had he hadn't said anything. I was thankful for that.

I spent a lot of quality time with my family, which really did mean a lot to me. Emmett and Rosalie were coming from Seattle to stay with us the night before Christmas Eve. I was looking forward to seeing my brother, I really missed him.

Every Christmas since she was fifteen, Bella volunteered to run the little booth outside of the Port Angeles Christmas "Street of Dreams" event. It was a charity event where cars loaded to the brim with squealing children would come and tour the surrounding blocks where houses were professionally and elaborately decorated, with the help of the local fire and police departments, headed by none other than Chief Swan. It was a really beautiful event and it ran for a few weeks leading up to Christmas. The proceeds benefited Komen, a breast cancer foundation. Bella manned the booth every December twenty-third.

Charlie had dropped Bella off earlier in the day but then returned to Forks for work. At nine o'clock, an hour before the lights were set to turn off via the automatic timers signalling the end of the event for the day, I packed up some sandwiches and a thermos full of hot chocolate and Bailey's, which admittedly was only a splash hot chocolate and the rest was all liquor, and went to go meet Bella.

I parked along the street right next to where Bella was standing talking to a car of event-goers and taking their donations. I grabbed the bag with the food and as soon as I closed the car door and turned around Bella was in front of me smiling.

"Hi," she beamed up at me.

"Hi," I returned, and without really thinking about it, I laced my arms around her, pulled her to me and kissed her. She gasped then sighed contentedly into my mouth and that was when I realised I was openly kissing her on the streets of Port Angeles, albeit, with no one around. I couldn't find it in me to care, I liked the feel of her silky lips moving over mine way too much to quit. Ever.

"What's in the bag?" she asked, placing a final, innocent peck on my check and lifting the flap of the bag to peek inside.

"Dinner," I said, being intentionally vague just to tease her – she knew what was in the bag. I presented her with a warm turkey and cranberry sandwich, stuffed with a honey and cinnamon infused goat cheese. Her eyes widened in excitement. She was starving, which I anticipated. She always was by the end of her shift at the booth. It had become a little tradition for me to meet her every year with food. The Bailey's had been a recent addition.

We climbed up onto the hood of the old Volvo and unwrapped the sandwiches. I unscrewed the lid of the thermos and she took several large gulps, humming in appreciation of the warm, sweet liquid. I grabbed a beanie out of the bag and wriggled it onto her head, despite her protestations, knowing she was frozen to the bone, but being grateful that it was at least dry out, for a change.

Occasionally, Bella had to hop down and go take a donation at the booth, but soon the flow of traffic waned and we were left sitting alone drinking from the thermos.

Bella twisted toward me and draped her legs over mine, my feet resting on the car bumper. She offered me the thermos but I shook my head. I already had some but I had to drive us home, so I had enough. She happily took my swig for me.

"Have Emmett and Rose shown up yet?" she asked.

"No, but they were on their way when I left, so they should be there by the time we get home. Why?"

"Just wondering. I haven't seen Rose since the summer. I miss her."

"Meh. She's the same," I rolled my eyes.

"Shut-up, Edward, you love her."

I scoffed. Love was a strong word. Rosalie was mostly fine, but I wouldn't volunteer to spend the rest of my life with her. "Better Em than me, is all I'm saying. I prefer my women a little less bossy," I stated, winking at her.

"Hmmm…I beg to differ. I bet I could find a way to boss you around that you wouldn't mind so much," Bella purred, running a finger over the collar of my jacket and slowly down my chest.

_Jesus Christ._

I grabbed the thermos and peered inside in a dramatic display to see how much she had drank. She giggled and bit her lip, looking up at me from under her eyelashes. I had an instant desire to be bossed around.

We hadn't found a moment to be together again since the time on the stairs, and my entire body craved her again. I swallowed thickly before rediscovering how to link my brain with my vocal chords. "I don't know. I reserve judgment until you demonstrate your point. Thoroughly." I forgot how to blink. My eyes were narrowed and trained on Bella, seeing her before me, but also seeing her in my imagination starring in a really fucking hot fantasy.

Bella grinned at me and leaned over, her fingers still resting on my chest, and kissed me. I tried to deepen the kiss but she pulled back enough to refuse my tongue as it swept across her lip seeking entrance, and instead placed several chaste pecks at the corner of my mouth and along my jaw, teasing me. She sat back and smiled at me. There was a hint of something devious in her eyes. I liked it.

I pulled her to my chest and ran my fingers up and down her arm, resting my chin on the top of her head. She continued picking at the bag of chips that sat in my lap. I snatched one out of her fingers just before she was about to put it in her mouth and ate it myself. She lolled her head back to look up at me and pout considerably, then turned back to continue eating and reclining easily against me. I kissed the top of her covered head and smiled into the cold night air.

When we were finished and the lights had long since gone out, I helped Bella pack up the contents of the charity booth and load everything into the car so we could head back toward Forks. Bella's fingers trailed up and down my leg from my knee to my the top of my thigh as I drove. It had an incredibly calming effect on me. She was curled in the seat facing me and her eyelids drooped. She always spent a lot of time discussing the charity with the patrons over the course of the afternoon, its benefits, aspirations, and what the proceeds went to specifically. It was an entire day preaching the importance for the foundation and what it meant to so many people. It was always an arduous day for her. Breast cancer stole her mother. Between that and the holidays, the charity night was always both wonderful and difficult for her. It was why I was always there to bring her home and comfort her afterward. She always needed it. She needed _me._

I parked in the driveway and leaned over to a slumbering Bella. I trailed soft kisses from her ear to her lips and back several times, murmuring little bits of affection and appeals to wake up. She smiled at me and I asked if she was okay. She assured me she was and so we made our way into the house.

Emmett was in the living room with Jasper joking about something, they both roared with laughter. I stood at the open front door eyeing Jasper accusingly until they noticed me. Jasper shook his head at me and rolled his eyes, which I took as a good sign he wasn't busy re-enacting the story of how Chief Swan had almost busted and then murdered me.

"Hey!" Emmett called, jogging over to the door to scoop Bella up and spin her around, kissing her forehead before sitting her back down onto her feet. I smiled at the display. She was so integral to the entire family – it wasn't just me. "We missed you last month." He jabbed her lightly in the shoulder grinning at her in his typical wide, ape-like way.

"I know, I missed you guys too," Bella returned, rubbing her shoulder and mock-glaring at him with a brief glance in my direction. Emmett reached over and gave me a similar shove, except it was harder and more like a shoulder-check that landed me against the edge of the open door.

"Asshole," I muttered, glaring at him in earnest. He grinned back unphased. "Married life is that good is it, that you have all this pent up hostility?" I jumped down off the landing and threw the bag with the very empty thermos in it on the couch.

Emmett laughed. "Actually, married life is nice thank you very much," he sneered at me.

"And where _is_ your lovely wife?" Bella asked.

"I'm not sure. Upstairs in the bathroom I think," Emmett shrugged. I sat down by Jazz and grabbed Emmett's abandoned X-Box controller off the seat and killed animated people with him for the rest of the night, wishing really badly that I could find some time to be alone with Bella instead. But it was the holidays and everyone was everywhere all the time. Assholes.

Bella spent the rest of the night upstairs with Rosalie and Alice doing whatever in the hell girls did for hours on end in a bedroom with nothing but combs and nail polishes.

The next day was Christmas Eve, and the annual Cullen Christmas Eve gathering. The women were in the kitchen all day cooking and baking in aprons and heels like it was the Fifties, while the men sat around doing absolutely nothing. Me and my dad seemed to be the only guys bothered by the stereotype, but we were quickly chased out of the kitchen every time we poked our heads in and tried to offer up our services.

The house was filled with mouth-watering aromas and by the time we finally sat down to eat I was famished – and kind of edgy because of it.

Charlie agreed to carve the turkey, because every year he and my dad were overly generous in volunteering the other to have the honour. I was thankful when Charlie finally acquiesced because I was two seconds from swearing profusely and jumping up to cut the fucking thing myself, I was so hungry. Once we were all served and chowing down, the conversation flowed merrily. Bella sat on my right and not at the opposite end of the table like the year before. All was right in the world once again. Her fingers did that thing again where they lightly trailed over the top of my thigh from under the table and it immediately soothed my mood. Well, that and the food I was greedily shovelling into my mouth. One thing about Cullen women...they sure could cook.

Over dessert Emmett cleared his throat loudly after pouring himself another large glass of wine, obviously trying to gain our attention. We all stopped what we were doing and looked over to him where he sat next to his wife. He beamed at us and turned to Rosalie.

"Darling?" he said in an intentionally cheesy voice.

Rosalie smiled bashfully, which was odd for her, and looked around the table. "Well," she began. "Esme and Carlisle already know this, but…"

She was cut off by my little sister as she clasped her hands over her mouth and squealed at a pitch that made my brain vibrate. I muttered and looked over at her, completely confused.

"No way," Bella breathed excitedly next to me. I looked back to her with questioning eyes. What the hell was I missing? Even Jasper had a smile on his face while we waited for Rosalie to finish whatever it was that she had to say. Maybe I had too much wine, because everyone but me seemed to understand what I clearly I did not.

"What?" I moaned, growing annoyed again.

"I'm pregnant," Rosalie finished, smiling at me.

_Oh. _My mood lifted again.

"Jesus, buddy," I grinned at my brother. "That didn't take you long." I was genuinely thrilled for him, if not a little shocked.

Alice leapt from her chair and ran to Rose to hug her and nail her with the Spanish inquisition of girlie questions. I don't think I had ever seen my parents smile so broadly before, and even Charlie was shaking hands with my brother and congratulating him. The rest of dessert was spent in a sea of squealing excited girls and well-intended jokes wishing Emmett and Rosalie luck from the three veteran parents at the table.

When I jumped up to start helping remove things to the kitchen and clean up Emmett followed me. We emptied our hands onto the counter by the sink and then I pulled him into a huge bear hug, slapping him on the back. The idea of my idiotic brother as a father was still irreconcilable in my head, but he was a good man and I was happy for him.

"Holy fuck, hey?" I raised my eyebrows at him, chuckling. It was a man's congratulations.

"I know," he returned in a deadpan voice with wide-eyes. "To be honest I didn't think it would happen like, right away. I think I spent the first week throwing up more than her out of sheer panic."

I laughed, that was so my brother. I reassured him, making sure he knew that just because I thought he was an oaf, I still thought he would make an excellent father so long as he didn't torture the poor thing the way he did me when we were growing up.

I muttered something about how we were all growing up so much. Emmett scoffed at me and rolled his eyes. "Well, maybe some of us, huh?" He nudged my shoulder with an idiotic grin on his face. "Not you. Pretty-boy, big-city bachelor."

I chuckled at him. He always had such a distorted impression of what my life was like while in New York. "Uhm…actually…" I began, knitting my brows together. I was ready to tell my brother about Bella and I, the moment seemed right and I was sure Bella wouldn't mind. I wanted him to know. I wanted everyone to know our true depths.

But Rosalie poked her head through the kitchen doors. "Babe?" She asked, looking between the two of us. "Oh, sorry, am I interrupting? I was just wondering if you still have those ultrasound photos on your cell phone, Alice wants to see them." It was easy to see why they say pregnant women glow…they actually do. I smiled warmly at Rosalie, the idea of a baby in the family overwhelming me..but .in a good way. Emmett gave me an inquisitive look, then followed Rose out into the living room.

Once the house settled down from all the excitement, we broke off into clusters and went our separate ways. My dad and Charlie were in the office drinking and talking, while my mom and Rosalie were upstairs in the living room discussing everything about being pregnant. Alice and Jasper followed me and Bella down into the media room to watch a movie. Emmett trickled down soon after, having grown bored and stressed out by the female chatter upstairs.

Alice and Jasper occupied the couch, Emmett sprawled out on an over-stuffed chair, and I was on the floor with a blanket over me and curled around a throw pillow and Bella. She was cradled in front of me and our legs were intertwined. Underneath the blanket my arm was draped across her side and she held my hand against her stomach. I inched her shirt up with my fingers and the tips ghosted idly against the warm, inviting skin, drawing circles softly.

She spent the entire movie wiggling her ass against me, knowing what she was doing to me. Repeatedly I saw the apple of her cheek raise in a smile when she would push back against me just right and I would grunt quietly behind her. I spent the duration of the movie breathing heavily into her ear and nuzzling against her, occasionally placing a kiss or two against the back of her neck or her shoulder, unaware of whether or not anyone was watching.

After the movie, Alice and Jasper grew bored as Emmett flipped through channels on the TV. They excused themselves to go and seek entertainment elsewhere. I tried not to think about it, hoping mom was still up and would keep them in line. Emmett lounged peacefully in the chair, laughing and commenting on everything as he flicked through each channel. He barely registered in my mind, all I knew was Bella's ass felt really fucking good rubbing against my straining dick and her hair smelled incredibly sweet. I forcefully dragged her entire body closer to me by pulling at her where my arm was situated at her waist. She sighed a breathy, needy sigh, and I trailed my hand over her hip and squeezed. I whispered in her ear all the ways I needed her while I used the leg that was draped over hers to curl my foot around her calf and pull back, forcing her legs to part a little and her to lean into me more. My dick was trying to claw its way out of my pants, knowing everything it ever wanted was so close. And still…Emmett continued flipping channels completely fucking oblivious to the fact that his little brother was desperate to get laid.

I moved my hand to the top of Bella's jeans, popped open the button, the blankets concealing _most _of my movements should Emmett decide to glance in our direction. What the blanket could _not _conceal was the moan that slipped out of Bella's little mouth as I dipped my fingers down the front of her pants and slid them between her lips. Or the breathy expletives that escaped my mouth when I felt how incredibly wet she was.

Her arm snaked back over her shoulder and her fingers tangled in my hair, which was pretty obvious and a bit more "affection" than everyone would be used to seeing from us, especially given the way both our faces would have reflected our needs. Obviously…we didn't care.

I slid my fingers back and forth against her a few times, circling and curling in all the right places. She raised her hips off the floor each time my hand began to move away, begging for more contact. Bella lay mostly on her back by that point, directly in front of me. My fingers slipped in and out of her, the heel of my hand resting against her pelvic bone and her body writhing in subtle ways as she both fought and enjoyed my touch.

Her hand had been resting still against her stomach where I left it, but soon it retaliated. She reached behind her, her eyes closed, moving very slowly and deliberately under the blanket to palm my dick over the top of my pants. I hissed in her ear, because it was funny when it was me torturing her. It wasn't quite as funny when the playing fields were equalled. She rubbed her palm over me to the point that the sensation controlled me and I forgot to keep up my own ministrations on her. My hand stilled and my eyes squeezed shut.

Then something landed on my hip and my eyes shot open. Bella's hand stilled and Emmett grumbled. He stood and stretched his arms over his head, reaching to the ceiling and yawning. He nodded at the remote that he had thrown at me. "I'm going upstairs, there's nothing on," he muttered as he climbed the stairwell that led to the main floor and the living room…where presumably most, if not all, of my family was gathered as the evening winded down.

I was on top of Bella about a millisecond after Emmett's feet left behind the last step. She was all protest and I was all fumbling fingers and shaking legs. She looked at me with eyes wide in horror but also eager anticipation. I freed myself and yanked her jeans down far enough that I could force my way in through the tangle of restricting clothing and blankets.

"Edward, we can't," Bella whispered, pushing against my chest and looking over her shoulder, but also slackening her thighs as I moved around her moisture with my fingers getting her ready for me.

"Wanna bet," I growled, hovering over the top of her. We were about ten feet from the mouth of the stairwell. I rubbed myself against her, dipping in an inch and then back out, further encouraging her. She moaned then clamped a hand down against her own mouth, her eyes on fire as they pierced mine.

She unclamped her mouth and glanced between me and the stairway several times. Every muscle in my body was twitching. I ran a palm over her hair, smoothing it down, and placed a gentle kiss at her temple, staring at the stairs myself. I was already poised and slowly moving in and out of her entrance. Her body rocked with a wave of sensation and I smirked down at her, knowing she wanted me inside her as much as I longed to crawl in and make myself at home.

I remembered our last Christmas Eve romp on the outdoor sofa and smirked at her, wondering if we were starting a new tradition of sneaking sex in highly volatile locations every Christmas Eve. It was a tradition I was more than willing to embrace fully.

'Okay, fine," Bella whispered harshly at me, tugging at my shoulders, pulling me down onto her. "But you have to be fast."

I snorted into her ear. "Oh, okay." Seriously, did she think I had a choice at that point?

I braced myself on my elbows and pushed all the way into her. Bella bit her own lip hard to keep from crying out. I had to admit, after all the waiting and the build-up, it was heaven the moment I sheathed myself fully by her. I nearly cried out loud myself. I used my forearms to support myself off of her and pumped in shallow, quick thrusts, constricted heavily by all our clothing. My eyes were trained on the wall against the stairwell. I watched the light that shone against it from the upper level for any sign of shadow or approach. It was highly distracting and after a minute I realised Bella too was tilting her head back to watch the wall.

I reached down and cradled her face, pulling it back toward mine. "I got it, Bella," I whispered, still moving inside her. "Let me worry about it. Trust me, please. You…just focus on feeling me inside you." Shoe moaned at my words. I kissed the apples of her cheeks and rubbed soothing circles at the hinge of her jaw while keeping my eyes trained on the lights against the far wall. I moved slowly back and forth inside her. I brushed my lips softly over hers, sucking lightly and moving with her, kissing her. Bella adhered to my simple request and closed her eyes and just enjoyed the satisfaction I brought her.

There was movement from upstairs and her eyes shot open to look at me. I shook my head at her, telling her everything was fine. No one was coming down. I would protect her, even in the most unorthodox ways. She could trust me.

Sensation began to curl in my belly and claim me, but with everything going on around us, Bella had yet to come. It was looking like I was just going to have to make that up to her later, because I was so fucking close I could taste it.

I groaned her name in her ear as I rocked above her. It was an apology more than anything else.

"Its okay, Edward," she whispered. Her fingers wove into my hair and pet the top of my head soothingly. "You can cum, baby. Please."

She trailed kisses along my neck and jaw. I knew her eyes were on mine, but I was too nervous to look away from the stairwell. Besides, she didn't have to ask me twice. I came as intense, nearly violent, waves of release left my body and I was milked for everything I had. I collapsed against Bella, but after a few seconds thought better of it and rolled over to my back. We pulled up our pants in silence, trying to catch our breath, and I leaned over and kissed her, slowly. It was tender and intimate. My tongue found hers and slid against it affectionately. Her fingers ran along my collarbone and chest. I nuzzled into her further with my nose, sighing her name and telling her I loved her. Then, I buttoned up my pants and jumped up to my feet, leaving her on the floor wrapped up in the blanket.

"Thanks," I said, beaming at her and finishing doing up my buttons while still staring at the lights from upstairs. "I'm gonna go upstairs now." I straightened out my shirt and made my way toward the staircase. Bella gaped at me.

"I feel so used," she whispered after me. She was kidding. I knew she was. What happened on the floor in the media room that night had happened a hundred times over in far more indecent scenarios than that throughout the years of secrecy.

I stood at the foot of the stairwell and chuckled at her. "No you don't," I countered, winking at her. "I'll see you upstairs."

A broad smile spread across her face and her eyes twinkled in the flashing lights from the television.

Bella and I felt many things toward one another. Used would never be one of them.

* * *

God I love these two.

I hope this chapter showed the balance they always have between desperate physical need an dtrue emotional devotion...that was the plan anyway...

I love you, thank you.

Air

~xox~


	17. Something Worthy of Worship

First of all I would like to thank everyone that has loved me and this lil fic so much since its birth. You guys and your reviews and the pimping and love on Twitter are the best...ever!

Thank you.

A few people were wondering about the time line. It is a circular time line that began in the present, slowly fades into the past, is primarily told in the past, and then as it nears completion it will slowly drift back into the present where it will finish up. I hope that clears that up :-)

This chapter is a little shorter than usual, but what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in...uh...content, I think.

*blush*

As you were...

* * *

I hadn't seen Alice or Jasper since they retreated after the movie; I refused to let my mind wander to far as to why.

Rosalie, Bella, and my mother were curled together comfortably on the couch in the front room by the fire talking in hushed, yet excited, tones about the pregnancy. Emmett and I were beating up hookers on the couch that was tucked into the large great-room's alcove that housed the TV and video games. We shoved and swore at each other, laughing. He decimated me repeatedly. Hanging my head in mock-shame, I stood and stretched. I dropped the controller onto his head after he had quietly berate me for over a minute about how much I sucked at video games.

I glanced over at the women. They were bent over an album, cooing and smiling at what I instantly recognised as a collective baby book of all three kids. I glanced at the large wall clock that hung over the blazing fireplace and noticed that it was well into the wee hours of the morning. My eyes slid back toward the couch and to Bella in particular. Hers were already silently looking up from under her eyelashes at mine. The corner of her mouth lifted when we locked on one another and I gave her a slight smile - so much smaller than the onslaught of emotion her simple little gesture was capable of eliciting inside me.

I closed my eyes and yawned theatrically, it was just to be annoying but also I was genuinely exhausted. Emmett's foot connected with my ass as I yawned and he shoved me forward, snickering at me. I muttered under my breath then made my way to the couch where they were settled. I wedged my knee on the couch cushions between my mother's lap and Bella's, glanced down at the pictures of Emmett as a messy, obnoxious toddler, and rolled my eyes while smiling at them.

"I'm going to bed," I mumbled, my tongue barely capable of forming the words, it was so heavy with fatigue.

My mom reached out, that Christmas holiday, motherly twinkle in her eye, and combed her fingers through my hair. She lightly tugged on it, grimacing at its unusually long length, and slid her hands down my cheeks and pat me.

"Night baby," she whispered at me. Clearly the combination of us all being home, the holiday, and the impending grandchild had her all kinds of emotional. It explained the earlier looks and oddities. I squeezed her hand that was still cupping my cheek and smiled at her.

I leaned across my mother and over to Rosalie and took her head in between my palms. I kissed her forehead gently, whispering my repeated congratulations to her. I was still sort of processing all of that, but ecstatic nonetheless.

While I exchanged with Rose, Bella's little fingers rubbed softly along the side of my thigh that was pushed against hers. I said good-night to Rosalie and then leaned back over my mom and stood up. I bent down and tucked Bella's hair behind her ears and leaning in, I kissed her over the top of her ear and told her I loved her. The whole exchange took fifteen seconds, but I was sure it caught everyone's attention. I hadn't whispered because I was concerned with anyone overhearing. I whispered because it was a quiet and tender moment between all of us and my words just came out that way.

With a parting smile to all of them, noticing Emmett had slipped on some media headphones and was blissfully oblivious to the universe, I made my way up the stairwell.

My body was spent. I kicked off my shoes and left them where they were as I walked the hallway to my bedroom, stumbling over them as my feet dragged and I kept moving. I would get them in the morning. I pulled my shirt over my head and peeled off my jeans, and then crawled into bed. I sank blissfully into the mattress and don't even remember my head connecting with the pillow before I slipped away into a red and green holiday dream filled with peace and contentment.

With no concept of time between falling asleep and then, a wave of chilly air floated across my skin. The blankets shuffled and a cold little hand slid across my torso as Bella wiggled up against me and moulded herself to my back. Her toes were freezing. I covered her hand with mine and squeezed it, rubbing my warm feet over her frozen little ones. I sighed against her.

I moved to roll onto my back to switch positions with her so she could lie with her head on my chest, but her arm tightened around me and she whispered a soft "no".

"Sometimes I just want to hold onto you," she whispered into my neck, kissing the top of my bare shoulder. I smiled. I knew what she meant. Sometimes when my arms were empty they actually ached with a desperate craving to feel her body pushed against them - to just embrace her. She wormed her way as close to me as she could get and held tight. Her breath dragged over my shoulder and neck, warming me from the outside as her nearness melted me from the inside.

I reached back and stretched my arm over hers that held onto me, running my hand across her hip and down to squeeze the meaty flesh of her ass cheek in my hand. Not in a sexual way. I slid my hand along her ass and down the back of her thigh, cupping her leg and pulling at the back of her knee. I hitched it over the top of mine and smoothed my palm along her skin until I reached as far as I could stretch, and then I placed my hand back over hers that rest against my stomach. I floated back to the warm and content place I had been before the she joined me in bed. It was exponentially more content than it had been before.

As the first dusty rays of sunlight trickled in through my drawn blinds, I woke up slowly and opened my eyes to find Bella sitting in front of me at the foot of my bed. There was an elaborately wrapped silver gift bag in her lap. Her legs were crossed under her and her hair was wild as it always was when she first woke up. She was wearing a pair of underwear and the tee shirt I had stripped out of before getting into bed the night before. She was practically bouncing in anticipation. In hindsight it was probably the bouncing that woke me and not the muted sunlight.

Her smile lit up the room.

I scrubbed the backs of my fisted fingers into my eye sockets and yawned. "What time is it?" I asked, sitting up and blinking against what light was in the room.

"Seven twenty-six," she answered glancing at the alarm clock on the bedside table. "Merry Christmas, Edward."

I smiled at her. She was cute. And the damn silver bag she was holding was my gift to her – which clearly she was eager to open. I chuckled under my breath at her. "Merry Christmas, Bella." I leaned over and ignored the gift on her lap and wrapped my hand around the back of her head, lacing my fingers into her crazed hair, and pulled her toward me for a kiss. "We should get downstairs."

Bella whimpered a long and exaggerated whine, jiggling on the bed and eyeing her gift bag pointedly.

"What?" I asked innocently, raising an eyebrow at her and raking my hand through my hair. It had to be a disaster.

"Edward." She managed to make my name about four or five syllables. I snickered at her.

"Okay fine, go ahead. But it's nothing that exciting or anything," I qualified. She rolled her eyes at me and reached into the bag, gently pulling out the tissue paper until she retrieved small, wrapped rectangle. She opened it and revealed the brown, leather journal. It was artistically tattered and made to look ancient, despite being brand new. The pages appeared aged around the edges, yellowed and wrinkly, and it had a frayed rusty-coloured satin ribbon as a place-holder. It was the kind of notebook that made you _want _to write something profound in it. Or at the very least, it made even the most mundane entry at appear somehow significant.

Bella smiled and looked up and me, blinking rapidly.

"Well, you always used to write things down, like, back when were kids and in high school and stuff. You were always writing everything down in those notebooks, and, well, I didn't see any lying around anywhere in your apartment, so I figured that you had stopped. But…I dunno…" I scrubbed my palms over my face, wondering if my thought process was making any sense so early in the morning. "I know you carry your laptop around with you everywhere, but there's just something to be said for the honesty and purity of writing in ink. And what you do with words is just…I don't know, you're really good. I don't want you to lose that in the middle of all the required academic writing. You're just so talented, Bella. And I miss seeing the underside of your fist covered in smeared ink." I offered her a small smile.

She was flipping through the pages of the journal thoughtfully, which looked silly because they were all the same - blank. But there was a glimmer of excitement in her eye as if she could already see the words on the pages that would soon fill them.

"Thank you," she whispered, looking up at me and sighing.

I nodded and smiled, then gestured toward the bag. "There's more."

Bella reached in a pulled out a soft, purple, velvet bag with something inside. The name "Sergio Rossi" was written in an elegant script across the velvet and she clapped her hand over her mouth. After a few muffled squeals she slowly slid the shoe out of its protective, velvet armour.

While I recognised that the shoes were really fucking hot and I couldn't wait to see her in them, I admittedly had very little knowledge of female shoe shopping. At least…I _didn't _until I made the mistake of opening my mouth one day on the phone to my little sister. A month later and I had more shoe knowledge in my head than any man had any business knowing. And still hadn't picked out those particular heels, Alice did. She emailed me a pic and then phoned and listened, squealing about them as I opened the link. I told her they looked perfect, then went out and bought them myself.

They were a black, leather, five inch, peep-toe heels with and rippled, asymmetrical inseam. There was a thick, belted cuff around the ankle complete with a buckle. The insole was a deep shade of purple so rich it was almost an iridescent indigo-blue. I really wanted to see what Bella's endless legs looked like in those fucking shoes.

Bella was murmuring things about the heels, thanking me and calling them every delicious little adjective she could think of. She slipped the shoe on her bare foot and held it out in front of her off the bed, rolling her ankle around an pointing her toes to admire the shoe. I had leaned back against the pillows, my hands behind my head and began shutting my eyes again, feeling happy and sleepy still. I opened my eyes to watch Bella play with her foot and the pretty little shoe though. She was cute. She didn't wear heels often, but when she did she really appreciated exquisite shoes, especially Italian ones – something that I was sure had learned from my sister.

Bella slipped off the shoe and I shut my eyes again for a brief moment. I heard her rustling around in the gift bag then making a distinct pouting noise. I peeked open one eye and smirked at her.

"There's only one shoe," she said, the statement of fact coming out more like a question as she eyed me suspiciously. I closed my eye, my smile widening. "Edward?"

"Mmm?"

"Where is the other shoe?" she asked, it was clear, despite my eyes remaining closed, and that she was smiling as she spoke.

"On the floor in my closet back in New York. If you want to where them together you're going to have to come get it yourself," I purred the words, laying on my charm and most dazzling, yet innocent-looking smile. I opened my eyes and found her glaring at me. Though of course, she was only playing.

"That's just cruel," she muttered.

I laughed. "What, to force you to come visit me?" I pushed myself back up onto my elbows and watched her.

"No. I would have come to visit anyway. It's cruel to use these poor Rossi's as bait," she whined, petting the shoe as if it were a small, scared animal. "Imagine how lonely that other shoe is."

"You have no idea how lonely." The words were out of my mouth of their own volition before I could place any thought into them. Bella returned the shoe to its purple armour, placed it back into the silver gift bag with the journal, and crawled across the bed languidly. Her eyes never left mine. She scooted up the length of my legs and sat, straddling my lap, her hands on my chest, and her eyes on mine. She bent toward me.

"I can make it go away," she whispered just before her lips brushed mine. We kissed slow and purposefully for a long time. When we parted Bella laid her cheek against my chest and I wrapped my arms gently around her tiny frame.

"Don't be lonely. Lonely is so sad. I don't want to think about you being sad. I love you too much for you to ever be either of those things," Bella said as she trailed her fingertips up and down my bare chest. I stilled her hand with one of my own and she looked up to me. I kissed her fingertips then dipped my head down and kissed her lips – the confirmation that I loved her too whispered and ghosted from my lips to hers as we kissed.

Eventually it was time for Bella to make her way back to the guest room where she was supposed to have stayed the night, put on some appropriate pyjamas, and meet everyone downstairs. I lay in bed for a moment longer as she walked out, enjoying the fire on my skin, the silken wetness against my lips, the warmth in my belly, and the idea of Bella coming to New York…and wearing those fucking heels.

I could hear the patter of her bare feet as she padded over the hardwood from my room to hers and down the hallway. I slowly climbed off the bed, laid my gifts from Bella, which included the promised burnt CD of my own White Stripes album, gently on the top of my suitcase. I brushed my teeth and then made my way downstairs to join the rest of my family and help my dad make breakfast – something me and him promised to do the night before after the amazing meal my mother had prepared. She clearly worked too hard just to take care of us. It would be our pleasure to return the favour, albeit on a smaller scale, with French toast and bacon.

As I walked through the doorway from my bedroom and into the hall it wasn't lost on me that my sneakers were sitting next to one another in a tidy row just inside my doorway. I recalled Bella in my shirt and realised she must have tidied for me. She was so good to me. I walked down the back stairwell and into the kitchen with a huge smile on my face.

After a big breakfast, we grabbed our mugs of coffee and made our way into the front room. We scattered on a combination of the furniture and the floor around the tree in order to open presents. It was always an all morning affair in the Cullen house. We opened one gift at a time, chatted excitedly throughout, and sipped our coffees slowly, enjoying the family and the moment.

The music sang around us in soft, familiar, holiday chords and the way the white lights from the tree sparkled across everyone's skin, lighting our eyes from the outside. I was sitting in the corner of the couch, turned sideways; Bella leaned against my chest and centered between my legs.

Christmas was hard for her. I couldn't even pretend to be qualified to understand that level of pain and loss.

Bella's head was lolled back against my shoulder, with the little fingers of one hand wrapped around one of my ankles, while the other hand ran up and down the thigh of my other leg. My hands rest on her shoulders, my fingers kneading out the rigidity that had her locked down as a response to the emotional pain.

She was so strong. She inspired me so much. She laughed and smiled and put on a brave face during the holidays. But I had spent too many Christmas's holding her quietly in a dark corner while she soaked through my shirt with her pain to believe the brave face for a minute. And so I rubbed her shoulders and whispered soft things of littler concern to her and was there for her as everyone laughed and opened presents - which included her and Charlie. They were always treated like immediate family in our house.

My open palms smoothed over Bella's shoulders and collarbone. I felt the gentle rise and fall each rib that stretched across her chest, the bare skin exposed from the large neckline that sagged from the old tee shirt that was too big on her. My outstretched thumb reached up and swept across her lips. Her eyes were closed and she hummed at my touch. I ran my hands back up to her shoulders and rubbed lightly, digging my thumbs into the base of her neck where she always carried all of her tension. It wasn't lost on me that there was a delicate silver chain draped around her neck that dipped low into the inside of her shirt...my shirt. My necklace. My girlfriend.

Alice sprang over with a wide grin and handed Bella a gift from her and Jasper. Bella sat up to open it and they talked back and forth. My hands drifted down her back and settled just above her hip bones, where I rubbed soft, soothing circles with my thumbs. I peered over her shoulder as she opened her gift and talked to Jasper as he came over to sit on the couch with us. Unthinkingly, I leaned down and kissed the sweet skin at the junction of Bella's neck and shoulder lightly, still conversing with Jasper.

On the other side of the room Charlie was telling my dad a story about a drunken brawl he had been called out to the afternoon before. As they spoke, I felt eyes on me. I glanced over at them and noticed that Charlie was studying me. He wasn't looking me in the eye; he was studying every movement of my hands and fingers as I held on to Bella in front of me. He was watching her fingers as they curled around the underside of my thigh were her arm was casually draped. Charlie's eyes were glued to our every subtle movement. Bella turned around and glanced at me, probably feeling my hands still. She smiled at me and I smirked and winked back at her. I began moving my hands along the outside of her thigh again, smoothing over the fabric of her old sweat pants.

I was sure the tender exchange of affection was something we had displayed countless times before. Wasn't it? I couldn't remember for sure. The lines were so blurred lately. And the emotional connection between us had deepened tenfold over the last year that we had spent together. So for all I knew every generic touch screamed my love for her. Either way...I glanced up to Charlie, his eyes still studying our interactions. He felt my gaze and looked up. Something flashed behind his eyes, but it came and went too quickly for me to identify it. His practiced poker face gave nothing away and he turned back to my dad to continue their conversation.

Deciding I didn't care whether or not there were eyes on us, I bent down and kissed Bella just under her ear. I tightened my hold on her, more presents and laughs were exchanged, and we all spent the rest of the morning being lazy in the front room, enjoying each other's company.

Later that evening I was in dad's den around the pool table, each man with two fingers of scotch and a cue. Chief Swan drew the short straw when we paired up, and so it was me and him against Emmett and my father. I felt bad for Charlie, for as much as I sucked at video games, I was infinitely worse at any real sport or game of skill. Add to that the obscene amounts of scotch that kept appearing in my glass every time it risked nearing depletion, and Charlie didn't stand a chance at victory.

He grumbled every time it was my turn to hold the cue. I'd wink and flash him an obnoxious Cullen smile, then take a long, exaggerated pull from my glass. I thought it was funny how badly I sucked, of course, so did my dad and Emmett, but Charlie, apparently not so much.

In between matches Emmett convinced dad to go down into the cellar with him to retrieve the _really _good malt. No sooner were they out the door then Charlie laid his pool cue down onto the felt tabletop rather roughly, and with a firm palm on the edge of the table and scowl, he turned to me and beat the shit outta me with his gaze.

"What?" I asked indignantly. I mean, I knew I sucked really badly, but everyone knew that. It wasn't like I was doing that shit on purpose. On the contrary, I was trying really fucking hard if for no other reason than to shut Emmett up. He laughed and joked that I was a pansy and I wanted nothing more than to clock him, even if he meant it all in good fun.

Charlie cocked an eyebrow at me. "What do you think," he grumbled.

"Charlie, look…I'm sorry, I really just legitimately suck at shit like this," I kicked lightly at the curled wooden table leg.

Charlie rolled his half-drunk, glossed-over eyes at me and scoffed. "Not that."

"Oh." Shit. This was going to be the conversation that I had thought I avoided up until then. I swallowed thickly.

He narrowed his eyes on me. I felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny. I wasn't exactly sure what it was that he was looking for, he had fucking known me since birth. There wasn't anything he was going to observe by staring at me that way that he didn't already know. I shifted and rolled a few balls around on the table avoiding his eyes at all costs.

"Harrumph," Charlie grunted, and because I'm a fucking masochistic idiot, I looked up at him.

His steel eyes echoed everything that the very Charlie-esque grunt had insinuated. He made no move to look away from me. I broke first and looked down, strummed my fingers against the wooden perimeter of the pool table, shuffled my feet, and glanced up at the clock on the wall.

_Seriously, how long does it take to get a fucking bottle from the basement? _

"Enjoy your walk home the other night?" Charlie asked in what was almost a whisper.

Without looking at him, I nodded slowly. It was less an answer and more an acknowledgment at the topic of conversation…if that was what the fuck you could call the exchange. I couldn't help the ironic little chuckle that escaped me as I shook my head.

"Jasper came and got me," I replied quietly, though for the life of me I don't know why. It was as good as an admission of guilt.

Charlie laughed. It was genuine and not angry sounding. I had to look back at him. His eyes were crinkled at the edges and he was holding his belly dramatically, embellishing the hearty laughter. He sighed and looked over to me. I smiled tentatively, not knowing what else to do or say.

"Edward," he began, correcting his stance, the steel returning to his expression. "I've always trusted you with her. I don't see any reason why that needs to change now." He arched that thick eyebrow up at me again in challenge and I was quick to nod emphatically. "She's all I have, son. I trust you. Feel the weight of those words."

It was something between a threat and a conviction. I took a deep breath in through my nose and held it, my head slowly bobbing up and down as I stared at my feet and contemplated his words. I could feel his eyes on me. I slowly blew out the breath and looked up to him, suddenly feeling very sober. I licked my lips, scraped my teeth over my bottom lip slowly, and locked eyes with him. We stood in silence for a few moments. Then suddenly, I was not a sheepish boy who was caught making-out, or whatever, with his daughter. Instead, I was the man who worshipped her. I meant with fervour the next words that came out of my mouth, and I could tell by the twinkle and the emotion in his eyes that he appreciated my sincerity.

"Bella trusts me. And nothing you say to me could ever weigh more than that. Charlie."

"Good," he stated flatly.

We were staring at each other in the eyes, having drifted closer to one another somewhere during the exchange and were less than two feet apart. The air between us was slightly strained when Emmett and my dad walked back into the room talking animatedly. They took one look at us and both stopped in their tracks.

"Everything okay in here," my dad asked in a tone that indicated he already thought the answer was 'no'.

"I think so," Charlie replied in a low and gravelly tone, maintaining his lock on me.

And…I was back to being the kid who got caught with the girl. I looked back down to my feet and chewed on the inside of my cheek. My dad slapped me lightly on the back as he walked by to set the malt on the liquor cart.

"Your turn to break," Charlie said to me, handing me my cue. I looked up and took it. "Don't fuck up." He snickered and walked over to the cart to pour out more scotch and make small talk with my dad. Emmett racked up the balls and I mulled over his words, sure there was a double meaning behind them. My dad glanced over to me out of the corner of his eye. I winked at him to let him know that I was fine.

And that was the end of that. All in all…I suppose it could have gone a lot worse.

Later that night I was in bed with the bedside lamp on, reading an old paperback that I found gathering dust in my closet. It was late and everyone but the girls had gone to bed. A small tap at my door made me glance up. Bella didn't wait for me to respond as she entered, gently shut the door behind her, and then crossed the room. She shed clothing as she walked.

I was frozen in place except for the smile that spread across my face and she undressed before me. Well…that and a few twitches in my pants. She rid herself of every last morsel of clothing and stood right at the head of my bed in the glow of the lamp.

"Good book?" she asked in a velvet smooth voice. I shook my head "no" ardently.

Bella smirked and reached down and pulled the book from my slackened fingers. My hands were essentially stuck in place as I swallowed thickly and raked my eyes over her. Her pussy was an inch from my face. I licked my lips and moved my gaze back up to hers.

"See something you like," she purred. Again. Words failed me. I nodded. "Well…it _is _Christmas. Every good boy should get what he wants."

Bella bent at the waist and pulled the little dangling chain on my lamp to turn it off. She climbed up onto the bed slowly and seductively. I was dying and my dick was raging.

_Merry fucking Christmas._

I shimmied out of my pyjama pants quickly as she yanked my shirt up over my head and straddled me. I bunched the comforter up around her hips and braced myself for the intensity of her sinking down onto me, closing my eyes and savouring the sensation…that never came.

I opened my eyes to see Bella sucking on the tip of her middle finger and watching me with an amused expression. She lowered her hand and, using the moistened fingertip, she softly began circling her clit and eyeing me keenly. My dick was sandwiched between us, her wet heat sliding against me as she toyed with herself, but never allowing me to enter her.

_Holy fucking shit. _I wasn't sure if I muttered that or just thought it.

She bent toward me, keeping her hand between us. I could feel the movement of her fingers against herself. She brought her eyes right to mine, our noses brushing. I think my mouth was hanging open.

"You owe me," she whispered. Her hand slid down between our bodies and she raised herself off of me just enough that her little fingers could wrap around my painfully swelling dick. I groaned at the contact and nodded. I _did _owe her.

"I'm glad were in agreement," she whispered, her sweet breath dancing over my lips.

She lay against me, her chest carrying most of her weight as it pressed against mine, and nuzzled her face in the crook of my shoulder. She raised her hips up, and with her fingers still wrapped around me, she began slowly sliding the head of my cock back and forth through her wetness.

A _very _long string of profanities slipped through my clenched teeth.

She repeated the trail over, and over, and fucking over again until my dick throbbed so painfully that I thought it was going to implode. She was unphased by my cussing and writhing beneath her as she slowly guided the head of through her folds and back again, pausing only momentarily to swirl it around her clit. She moaned and panted in my ear.

_Mother fucker. _She was using my dick to get herself off. It was torture. A sweet, diabolical torture. It was single-handedly the hottest fucking thing I had borne witness too – even as I swore profusely into her hair and dug my fingers roughly into her hips. She rubbed and dragged over me, her hand fisted tightly around my dick as she moaned and whimpered. The hand that wasn't pleasuring herself was tugging almost violently my hair.

I was grateful it wasn't five years ago because I would have blown my fucking load before she had a chance to cum at the sheer eroticism of her masturbating with the head of my cock. As it was, I had to squeeze my eyes shut tight and think of fucking dead kittens and shit just to stave off the orgasm.

"Oh fuck, Edward," Bella cried against the hot skin of my neck. "Fuck…fuck…fuck."

Her body stiffened and shuddered against me and I said a silent prayer. I cupped her ass firmly, opened my eyes, and didn't even wait for her to finish riding out the orgasm. I lifted her then crashed her down onto me. I plunged deep into her without further ado and we both cried out. I was really fucking thankful that the wing of the house that my bedroom was in was at the furthest point from all the other rooms, and in an area of the house that anyone seldom visited unless directly seeking me.

An abundance of indiscernible, guttural sounds came from both of us as I worked her hips over the top of me. Had I been of a sounder mind and not entirely deranged with need and lust, I would have felt bad about the vigour with which I gripped the flesh at her sides and slammed her onto me repeatedly.

Bella pulled viciously at my hair and rode the shit out of me as I grunted beneath her. She licked and kissed her way along my jaw and up the side of my neck toward my ear. She sucked on my earlobe and then ran her tongue along the shell of my ear. When she got to the top of it she bit hard into the cartilage and ground into mine. She didn't rise again despite the automatic pull I gave on her hips, used to the steady rhythm of up and down. Instead she stayed firmly planted against me and swivelled and squirmed, driving me deep inside her. A wave of intense sensation crashed down on me and levelled me with its force as the head of my dick hit something inside of her. She whimpered and shuddered.

"Do you feel that, Edward?" she breathed into my ear.

_Jesus mother fucking Christ, of course I feel it._

I grunted.

"That…," Bella panted into me. "That is _exactly_ where you belong."

I didn't even know what to say to that. The sensation was still ebbing and flowing inside me, lighting my toes and fingertips on fire. My thighs quaked and the tip of my left ear throbbed.

My hands abandoned her hips and ran up her back to her head. I cupped her face and held her firmly between my palms, her hair sticky and clinging to her cheeks and neck. I looked into her eyes and she looked back into mine. Our eyebrows knit and our eyes twitched as we stared at one another and the sensations continued to pull at us.

She slowly raised her hips off of me and sank back down at a slower, more controlled rhythm. Something warm and thick spread through me like melted honey and my eyes closed slowly of their own volition. The next thing I knew Bella's velvet lips were brushing against mine. It was a slow and tender kiss. It was a kiss that spoke of both lust and adoration. It was familiar and reverent. I knew that feeling of her lips on mine, the sensation of making love to her, the taste and scent of her body, and the way she shivered in my arms when overwhelmed by sensation.

It was in that moment that I understood how sex could be construed as a spiritual experience, even though I was a relatively undenominational man. I wasn't an atheist, and yet my family wasn't overtly religious - I fell somewhere in the middle. I believed in things, though I wasn't quite sure what they were. I had an incredibly academic mind, but still hoped that creationism and evolution could exist together and were not mutually exclusive ideas. And in that moment of pure, unbridled pleasure and connection with the woman whom I cherished more than my own life, I appreciated the term chosen in the book of Genesis when referencing to the act of sex.

_Know._

I _knew _Bella. And, as her lips moved with mine and our bodies worked together to bring us to a climax, I worshipped that knowledge. It was the expression of our love for one another. It was all we meagre humans had to convey the ferocity with which we were capable of loving another. Words and touches. Kisses that at times could feel so juvenile and at others could be almost other-worldly. It was all God gave us to express ourselves. Even when words failed us, our actions could speak what no human language had yet to find the words to properly articulate.

_I can't tell you, but I can show you._

Our bodies were designed to express emotion so much more proficiently than our words. We were made to truly know our lover – to see them and feel them inside, exposing ourselves to one another and allowing all the delicate, silken tentacles of our soul to reach out and find purchase on the others. Braiding together and becoming something bigger and stronger – something irrevocable. Something rare.

Something worthy of worship.

Seriously…what the fuck was it about good sex that could turn any man into a groveling, self-sacrificing, spiritual creature. It was just that powerful I guess.

I pushed up into a sitting position and Bella mewled and clung to me, refusing to depart even a moment's connection. I lay her back against the bed, my arms beneath her, cradling her body to mine as I finished making love to her with the full weight of my body laid flat against hers. I trailed kisses along her neck, over her collarbone, against her shoulder, and down the top of her arm. We came together rather loudly. It wasn't until it was over and the silence that fell around us was almost deafening as my ears rang with the memory of our screams. I hoped no one heard us. But I couldn't be bothered to care much beyond that.

Bella pulled a few items of clothing back on and I tugged on my pyjama pants. She pulled the little bronze chain on my lamp again, crawled back under the covers, and grabbed the old paperback from the corner of the bed where I had discarded it. She wormed her little body against mine so that she was tucked into me as much as was physically possible and opened the book - it was one of her favourites. We read passages together, giggling over the ancient writing and not-so-subtle innuendos until the wee hours of the morning.

When I made a joke that was met with nothing but silence I dipped my head down and peered at her. Her eyes were closed and her chest rose and fell at a steady, peaceful rhythm. I smiled at her, reached over to turn off the lamp, and then pulled the covers up around her shoulders and held onto her firmly. I sighed and kissed the top of her head and closed my eyes.

"Merry Christmas, Edward," she breathed dreamily, hugging her arms around my torso.

"Merry Christmas, Bella," I whispered back.

* * *

I have several chapters waiting, so barring any unforeseen SS trageies...I should update within the week.

Enjoy your weekend all. Love you!

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	18. Games People Play

Wow. Uhm...okay.

Holy shit.

You guys are amazing. I have some thanks to give...read it, these people are important to me. *sweet smile*

To EdwardsBloodType and Suzyq402 for the rec on High Anxiety, the forum and everything they have done. You girls blow me away.

Thanks to Brits23 of Laid Bare, you own me...true story.

To the girls at PTB who have invited me to head a class at the Smut University this summer, thank you. (Details to follow when I have them.)

To everyone that just started this story and stayed up all night reading and reviewing over the last week. *passes Starbucks* Thank you!

To everyone at the Robstenlove and Twilighted forums who are so kind every week.

And to all the other reviewers and rec'ers that I don't even know exist. I am truly floored by all your kind words every chapter. They mean so much more than I could ever explain properly. I am trying to reply to as many reviews as I can, esp if you ask me a question. Thank you so so much!

Here is my thanks, a trip down memory lane...ya know...within a memory... confused yet?

* * *

"So, you guys coming Saturday?" dad asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee and yawning, barefoot in the kitchen. One look at the bags under my eyes and the way my hair stood on end, still hopelessly in need of a haircut…and he grabbed an extra large mug out of the cupboard and filled it. He offered a tired smile and an inquisitive eyebrow as he slid it across the bar to where I was slumped into a barstool. My head was pillowed into one bent arm while the other was draped over the top of my head blocking out the stupid, bright track lighting in the kitchen. Seriously, couldn't we put those lights on a fucking dimmer switch or something?

I grunted something that was meant to be a thanks.

"So?" he prompted, undeterred by my caustic mood. My family was well aware that I did not do well with mornings. Single-digit morning hours should be out-lawed.

Saturday was New Years Eve, which was what my father was talking about. But the problem was that his voice was similar to the Peanuts teacher in my brain. I was so tired. Bella had been sleeping at Charlie's house since Christmas since he had taken the rest of the week off work so they could spend some quality together. I saw her several times since, but I still missed her. It was incredibly painful to have her so close and yet not close enough.

_Never close enough._

It was why I looked and felt like hell. I couldn't sleep without Bella. I craved her. And I knew she was just around the corner and not thousands of miles away like normal. My entire body rebelled in desperation. I had tried Christmas night to go to bed by myself, but everything felt cold and empty. The previous week Bella had either started out in my bed instead of the guestroom, or crawled in with me at some point throughout the night.

Her body was so soft and warm when it was curled around mine. It sent soothing waves of comfort rocking through my chest and made the corners of my mouth turn up. And so it followed that when she wasn't in that bed with me…sleeping sucked and I wanted no part of it.

Instead, since Charlie always retired so early, usually in his Barca lounger with a beer can on the coffee table next to him, Bella would grab the house phone and curl up in her bed. We would talk until one of us caved and allowed the tides of sleep lure us into their quiet depths. A few times I nodded off only to wake up and realise that Bella was asleep on the other end of the phone, murmuring and sighing beautifully. I would wonder what she was dreaming about and if she ever dreamed of me. I wondered if her dreams could be anywhere as sweet and perfect as our real life together. It didn't seem possible.

We felt like we were teenagers again with the up-all-night phone conversations that inevitably turned dirty, until after a fit of giggling, merged back into our normal, comfortable conversation. You wouldn't think that two people who had known one another since birth and barely spent a minute apart would be able to find so much to talk about…but we always did.

Which was why I was so fucking exhausted that my eyes felt like they were swimming in vats of acid and my body was made of lead. Everything around me just kind of swam in a garbled mess. Nothing was crisp, instead everything seemed slightly out of focus. I hadn't slept more than a few hours over the last three days. I had to do something about that…

I took a slow sip of coffee.

"Edward?" my dad said firmly, trying to get my attention.

I blinked slowly and stupidly at him, then remembered he had asked me a question. What was it?

"Sorry," I grumbled. He smiled and shook his head. He understood so much without the need for lengthy explanations. It was one of the many things I loved about my father.

"The annual charity ball…?" he prompted further when my brows knit together in tired confusion.

"Oh, right," I mumbled, gulping back more coffee and reaching over to where his blackberry was lying on the counter in front of him. I pushed the first button my finger landed on, knowing the screen was locked anyway but that the touch would pull the device back to life. The screen lit and told me it was Thursday, December 29 2005 5:18am.

I sighed.

I dragged my heavy hand through my hair.

"I need a haircut," I grumbled absent-mindedly. It annoyed me to no end when my hair got that long.

"Edward!" He was growing exasperated with my fuzzy focus – which said a lot because my father rarely got irritated, the man had nerves of steel.

"I'm sorry, dad," I muttered, meeting his eyes and smiling weakly. I scrubbed my hand over my face and focused. "Yeah I guess so, I mean…well…I don't know."

"Alright then. Why don't you go back to bed and get some sleep, son. I'll ask again later. In the meantime I'll put you and Bella down for, 'yeah-I-guess-so-I-don't-know'." He grinned at me, reached across the bar, planted his palm to my forehead, and shoved lightly in jest. I laughed – a puny sound – and muttered a thanks. I also almost fell backward off the barstool too tired to correct myself when he jostled me.

I pushed the coffee back towards him and stood. Dragging myself over to the mudroom just off the kitchen, I grabbed the first jacket my hand touched – Emmett's leather jacket – and slipped it on over my white tee shirt. I slid my feet into an old pair of my dad's flip flops that sat on the floor under the coat hooks, stepping on the ends of my too-long pyjama pants. I trudged back into the main part of the kitchen while dad eyed me curiously. I reached into the bowl by the kitchen door that lead to the garage and grabbed the keys to the old Volvo.

"Edward, where are you going?" he finally asked when I didn't offer up anything, but started to go outside. His tone hinted at genuine concern.

I pulled open the door. "To get some sleep," I muttered as the door banged shut behind me.

Six minutes later I was clomping heavily up Chief Swan's stairs, ignoring his penetrating eyes. I opened the door to Bella's room, rid myself of the flip flops and jacket, tossing them on the rocking chair in the corner of her room, and crawled toward the bed.

I left the bedroom door wide open. I wasn't trying to push Charlie's limits so quickly or make him uncomfortable; I was just really fucking tired.

Bella was a tangled mess. There was a sheet twisted into a rope and wrapped around one of her ankles, two pillows were on the floor beside the bed, the other balled up under her head, the comforter was half off the foot of the bed, and her hair was snarled and matted into knots. I untangled her foot, righted the comforter, smoothed the hair off her face, and lay down next to her. I curled around her and draped my arm over the smooth dip in her waist. I snuggled in close, took a deep breath of her comforting, sweet scent, and then welcomingly slipped away from the land of the conscious.

We woke up to Charlie knocking loudly on the door jamb. When my eyes finally focused, I saw that he was dressed and his mouth was downturned in a critical and pensive frown. His thumb and forefinger brushed against his moustache and he glowered in at us. I knew Charlie well enough to know he wasn't nearly as upset as he looked, that was just the way he convey minor annoyance. I glanced at the bedside clock. It had been seven hours.

_Jesus. _Know wonder he was irritated.

Wrapped up in my arms and draped against me, Bella's little body squirmed and hummed against. She turned and buried her face further into my shoulder and her arm on my chest fisted into my tee shirt. I glanced up at Charlie feeling a little nervous at the outward display of Bella's unconscious possessiveness as she held me to her with her little white knuckles. He rolled his eyes and grumbled.

"We have plans, get her up," he muttered as he walked away from the door, nudging it open wider with the heel of his boot. I rolled over to gently wake up Bella.

I kissed her lips and ran my fingers through her knotted hair until her eyes finally fluttered open. Clearly annoyed she protested and rolled away from me – but didn't let go of my shirt. She wasn't surprised to see me, so I assumed so had woken up earlier and happily remained in bed with me considering she had to have been as exhausted as I was.

After kissing her good-bye for what was a rather inappropriate length of time, I went back downstairs. I smiled at Charlie as I passed through the foyer, climbed into my car, and left feeling infinitely better than when I arrived.

The next night Bella and I were seated casually in the living room chatting when dad came home from the hospital. He sank into a large chair and joined us for a bit. At one point during our conversation about nothing really, I felt Bella's arm reach up and worm its way between my back and the couch. She rested her hand on my shoulder and her little fingers twirled in the hair at the nape of my neck. Whatever it was that my dad was talking about, he didn't break in the conversation, but I did notice his eyes quickly dart to the movement and then back. I smirked but said nothing. Bella knew he knew. A warm feeling flooded me and my head relaxed into her touch.

Moments later, as dad was climbing the stairs for bed, he leaned back over the banister and called down to us.

"Hey, did you guys decide about tomorrow night, yet?"

"Tomorrow night?" Bella turned to me.

"New Years Eve, the annual hospital benefit," I explained.

"Oh, right," she whispered and looked down at her lap.

"Did we want to go?" I asked.

"Yeah sure, we always do."

I studied her face. I knew her too well.

My mind scampered down a few different avenues and then I craned my neck to look at my dad where he was leaning over the railing waiting for our official answer. I shook my head "no" at him. His expression softened and he nodded.

I looked back to Bella who had her head tilted to the side in question. I slid my hands around her neck and wove them into her hair, holding her head and stroking her cheek with the pad of my thumb.

"Let's do something else," I whispered. "Just us."

Her bright smile confirmed that she was indeed hoping to spend the night alone with me. She crawled up into my lap excitedly and kissed me. I still had my hand threaded into her hair as she brushed her lips across mine happily. I could feel her smile against my lips.

Upstairs the floor creaked away from the banister and I realised dad had still been hanging over it for a moment as we kissed.

"Goodnight, kids," he called down to us as he walked away. We both mumbled a "goodnight" against each others lips, smirking and giggling as we did so, then continued kissing. She felt so perfect perched on my lap with my arms around her. As we kissed my mind began making plans for the following night.

"Not that," I scowled, shaking my head. Bella was changing for our New Years Eve night out. She was pulling on a nice blouse with lace frilly shit on it. It was the third top she had tried on while I sat cross-legged at the foot of her bed watching in amusement.

She growled and stamped her foot. "It would help if I knew where I was going," she grumbled at me, pulling the top back over her head and chucking it at me. I caught it and chuckled. I always found her incredibly cute when she was all huffy and annoyed.

I got up off the bed and opened the closet that still had a few random things in it from when she lived there permenantly. I yanked a hoodie off an old metal hanger. It flipped wildly from the force and fell to the floor. "This," I said handing her the sweatshirt.

"One of Charlie's old FPD sweatshirts?" she grimaced at the old grey hoodie.

"Yup." I nodded and picked up the hanger. "And you'll want to change out of those boots." I gestured down at the brown leather, heeled footwear that would be highly inappropriate for where we were headed.

"Edward!" she shrieked at me, her face all twisted up in a scowl. It had the opposite effect that I was sure she intended because I burst out laughing at her.

Once she was dressed and we were on the road, Bella stared at me from the passenger seat until I caved and looked at her. She raised her already arched eyebrows at me.

"What?" I asked innocently. She huffed. I giggled under my breath.

It was irrelevant any way as we were at our first destination. I threw the car into park and got out. I looked back and saw her still buckled in with a look of confusion on her face. I backtracked to her door, opened it and gestured dramatically, rolling my arm out toward the ground and saying, "madam."

"The diner?" she asked through a semi-scowl.

"Just a pit stop." I winked at her.

We walked up to the counter and I ordered some burgers and fries to go. I looked at Bella.

"Any special requests?" I asked nodding toward the waitress.

"No," she murmured slowly, her eyes narrowed on me. I smirked and told the waitress that was all.

Once the take-out was packed safely in the car and we were cruising along the one-oh-one, I leaned over to Bella. I kissed the spot just below her ear, exposed from the way she had gathered her hair into a loose knot at the back of her head. She smiled sweetly at me. When I took the exit for La Push road she raised an eye brow at me.

"The beach," I confirmed without taking my eyes off the road, knowing she was looking at me. After winding the Volvo around a sharp curve I glanced over to her, she was beaming. We needed this.

After I parked, I grabbed the take-out from the back seat and added it to the basket that I pulled from trunk of the car and handed it to Bella. She tried to lift one of the flaps and I swatted her hand. I grabbed the big wool blanket and draped it over my arm and closed the trunk. We took the rickety driftwood stairs down to the breakwater. There was a hoard of teenagers surrounding a campfire – loud and obviously drinking. With the basket looped through one arm, Bella curled into me and held onto my free arm, we started walking down the long beach away from the crowd.

I asked if she wanted me to take the basket and she shook her head, protecting it. She was determined to sneak a peek inside. I told her there was nothing that out of the ordinary and that she could probably guess all of its contents without even looking.

"Champagne?" she asked.

"Yup." She grinned. She loved champagne. With the carbonation, the sugar, and the liquor I always thought it was a cocktail for a morning migraine…but it was sweet and delicious and it was entirely warranted on certain occasions.

"Flutes?"

"Obviously," I rolled my eyes. "Way to be creative." She scowled at me.

"Food?"

"Cheater, you already know that," I joked, lightly bumping her with my hip.

"Hmmm…" Bella bit her lip and narrowed her little eyes at me. She scrunched up her nose and mouth, making a show of trying to think harder. "Napkins?"

"Wow, it's like you packed it yourself. You're good," I said, my eyes wide with mock-amazement.

She laughed that light-hearted, beautiful laugh that made my spirit soar. That laugh that every time I heard it made my eyes prick like a pansy – which I was just fine with. Because it was assurance, no matter how unnecessary it was, that she was who I was meant to be with. She was made for me. Her laughter made my heart swell.

I smiled at her.

"Is this a good spot, you think?" I asked after we had walked so far from the crowd that the flame from the bonfire was a distant orange flicker on the horizon and their ruckus was only a whisper on the wind when it blew just right.

"Perfect," Bella whispered looking up at me, chewing on her bottom lip.

I spread the blanket out on the sand that was compacted down from the recent rains. As it was, it was only lightly misting out, even though it was goddamn freezing. The mist was easily ignored, we were born and raised in Forks, we were more than used to it.

I gently removed the basket from Bella's arm where it looked like it might have been digging in uncomfortably. It was pretty heavy and I felt bad for letting her carry it. I rest it on the corner of the outstretched afghan and turned back to her. Taking her little arm in my hands I rubbed through the layer of her thick winter jacket.

She smiled sweetly up at me while I rubbed small circles into the crook of her arm. I met her eyes and they took my breath away. The black of the night was unaltered by the distinct lack of moon. The skies dripped of ink and the ocean could be heard washing over the shores but not seen. Bella's eyes were big and black eyes as they looked back at me with such trust and affection. Her hands trailed up my arms slowly then draped around my neck.

"Edward?"

"Yeah?"

"This really is perfect. Thank you."

"My pleasure, Bella," I sighed and brought my lips to hers, kissing her as slowly as the moment demanded. My eyes were heavy and only half closed, but since we were shrouded in such darkness, I couldn't see anything. Neither of us sought to strengthen the kiss, or deepen or quicken it. We just enjoyed the feel of being so close to one another. We had all the time in the world, or at least, we had all night. "Shall we?" I led her to the blanket once we separated.

We sat cross-legged on the thick blanket facing one another as I removed the take-out and opened up the lids, setting the containers between us. Bella munched on some fries as I poured out the champagne.

We ate and drank in complete comfort. The rain staved off and the wind was light. After the burgers, we lay back with our hands folded under our heads, and stared at the sky. It was a cold, clear night and every star twinkled perfectly above us. It was the kind of luminescent night-time sky that you would never be able to see in New York City – the surrounding skyscrapers and the neon lights muted most of the stars. The ocean lapped at the shoreline just a few feet in front of us, creating the most natural and soothing background sounds imaginable. We lay side by side, slightly inverted, so that our feet overlapped and our sneakered feet played with one another's.

We enjoyed each other's company for hours.

Then Bella sat up, emptied her flute and then refilled it, topping mine up as well. She reached into the basket to see what else was in there. She pulled out a neatly packed container and pried the lid off. She popped a chunk of Roaring Forties bleu cheese in her mouth and purred in appreciation. I shook my head at her.

"No, no, no. Not like that, baby, like this." I grabbed one of the walnut crackers, spread some of the bleu on it and layered it with a paper thin slice of green apple. I presented it to her, holding it to her mouth – she happily obliged. I placed it softly on her tongue and she closed her mouth, wrapping her lips around my finger and sucking the stray crumbs of bleu of my fingertip as I slid it out of her mouth. It was overtly sexual in the cheesiest way, but it was fun. I chuckled at her as she chewed and made a cracker for myself.

"Wow, you're right, Edward. That was delicious," Bella delighted.

"I'd say," I mumbled under my breath, shifting a little.

She giggled and made another cracker. I finished off my flute and refilled it.

"You're such a guy," she said, still lauhing. "You're so easy to turn on."

I raked my eyes over her and nodded.

_Duh._

She took another container out of the basket and opened it. She looked in, and then back up to me. And then back into the container…and then back up to me. She smiled broadly.

The container had strawberries and grapes, and in the center were a few small, square shortbread cookies – which were my personal favourite sweet treat – and one jumbo chocolate truffle. It was dark chocolate with white chocolate swirls over the top. What she couldn't see was that it was also filled with a thick cocoa and Grand Marnier cream. It was about the size of a golf ball. I figured it was just the right size for her to get in her chocolate fix.

I winked back at her.

"Edward?"

"Yes?" I asked, snapping off a bunch of grapes and popping one into my mouth, looking out into the black, black water.

"I love you…like…_a lot."_

The combination of emotion and gratitude made me look over to her.

"I love you too, Bella. Like…_a lot,_" I mimicked her words jokingly, flashing my famous crooked smile at her.

She took a slow sip of her flute, a nibble of the chocolate, then another sip, and then lay out on her back facing the water, her head in my lap. I finished off the grapes that were in my hand and then lay back as well, still holding her head in my lap. I rest my head against my forearms, the thick winter jacket sleeves, while not the best for cuddling, made for a comfortable pillow. Bella hugged my thigh.

"Hey?" she asked after a few minutes of peaceful silence.

"Yeah?"

"What's your earliest memory of me?" She rolled so that her head was still resting on my leg, but she could look up at me. I stroked my fingers through her hair and thought.

"My earliest memory of you," I repeated slowly, thinking. "I don't know…why, what's yours of me?

She cuddled closer to me and I closed eyes, a small on my lips.

"Well," she began. "I don't know which came first exactly. I just remember a bunch of little things I guess. Random flickers of things like, lying on our stomachs on the floor in front of the TV at my house, watching Sesame Street, and eating pretzels."

I remembered that too. Except I remembered throwing the pretzels at each other, not eating them.

"Or building that Lego tower in the old playroom at your house," she continued. "Remember? The time we confiscated every bucket of Lego's in Emmett's closet, then used them to make one huge tower that almost touched the ceiling."

It was my genius foundation-reinforcing ideas that allowed it to get that high and not topple over…of course I remembered.

"Yeah, and remember that he came home from school and kicked it over brutishly. Then stomped on it and yelled so loud my dad came running upstairs to see what the hell was going on," I added. "Em knew he was screwed for being such a dick so he took off running and dad chased him through the entire house before he finally cornered him in Alice's room."

Bella laughed at the memory, causing her head to bounce lightly against my thigh. I was still staring up at the black sky. It felt nice to have her lying across me. Her fingers were idly running up and down the inseam of my jeans.

"Oh god, I _do _remember that," she said. "That was hilarious. Your dad had him by the forearms, lifted in the air, and he presented him to us in the doorway of the playroom and forced an apology out of him. It took like half an hour before Emmett finally said sorry, and we were crying we were laughing at him so hard, while your dad glared at us for taking advantage of the situation. Then your mom came home from work and Emmett told her a sob story about how he did nothing wrong and your dad tried to kill him for no reason and that we were evil."

I laughed again. Emmett's impending kid was so screwed.

"What else do you remember?" I asked. It was a fun game listening to her recounting our kiddie-escapades.

"Uhm…I remember you broke my glow worm," she snarled, pinching the inside of my thigh.

"I did?" I asked, jerking my leg out of the way.

"What? You don't remember?" she scoffed, bolting up to a sitting position so she could gape at me with indignation. I lolled my head to the side and looked up at her. "You threw it in the toilet, closed the lid, and flushed it! It wouldn't glow anymore after that."

_ Definitely cute when huffy…and kinda sexy._

"That doesn't sound like me. Are you sure that wasn't Emmett?"

"Oh, believe me, Edward, I'm sure. I was like, scarred for life. Glowie was one of my all-time favourites." She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.

I wracked my brain to recall murdering the glow worm. Slowly something very faint came back to me. I grinned.

"Bella, _why_ did I drown Glowie?"

"Huh?" she asked while looking away and taking a drink of her champagne, playing obtuse.

"I saaaaid… _Why _did I drown the glow worm in the toilet? I can't for the life of me remember." My tone suggested I could.

"Because you were four, and a boy, and mean," she pouted.

I raised an eyebrow at her, thoroughly entertained.

"And because I maybe-kinda-sorta snuck into your room one morning and stole your little green army men and left them in my back yard and forgot about them until they melted in the sun and turned into icky-green, army-man soup," she confessed out, smearing all the words together as she quickly retold the tale of my revenge.

"Well, the life of one inconsequential worm for the price of an entire fleet of brave and heroic soldiers seems like a fair trade to me."

"Glowie was _not _inconsequential," she wailed.

"Well, if you ask me, you still owe me one," I joked. "Perhaps, Kis Majom?"

Bella clasped her hands over her mouth and gasped. "You wouldn't!"

I chuckled at her. "No. I wouldn't."

"Kis Majom" was a stuffed sock monkey that was brought back from a trip to Hungary that Charlie's parents had gone on when Bella was just a baby. They passed away shortly after and she was never that close to them. But that damn ratty monkey had always been her favourite toy. It meant "little monkey" in Hungarian. She slept with it every night, brought it with her everywhere including to school hidden in her backpack every day for years, and cried into while hiding in a corner with me when her mother died. The monkey currently sat in a sad, sad state of disrepair on the centre of her bed in Tempe. It was missing an eye, its tail had been sowed back on my both of our mothers more times that we could keep track of, the patterns were all faded, and the fabric was stained and pilling. It was so delicate now that it could no longer even be washed. It was on its last leg. I would never bring the pitiful, little thing any harm. I even felt bad once when I hucked it off the bed roughly during sex on my trip to Arizona.

Bella glared at me in threat. I raised my palms in defeat. Then I lifted my arm into the air, grumbling dramatically and wiggling, until she took the hint and lay back down against me.

"I suppose there were a few times you redeemed yourself back then," Bella allowed, snuggling in closer to me." I chuckled at the statement, both of us knowing there were more than "a few" times. Also it was obvious that she still harboured some animosity over Glowie meeting an early demise.

"The time I gave you my caramel apple when your stick snapped and yours fell in the dirt at the fair?" I suggested.

"Or the time you sprained your own ankle leaping out of the tree to make sure I was okay when I got stung by a bee on the tire swing," Bella recalled, her words soft and reminiscent, her eyes closed.

I continued combing my fingers through her hair, tracing the constellations in the sky in my mind. "Oh yeah, I still have a scar on my knee from landing on it in the gravel," I complained.

"I know," she whispered, running the tip of her finger over my knee where the small divot was. "So what do you remember?" she asked.

"Uh…" I thought again. As I ran through memories and tried to pick out some early ones, Bella's little hand reached up and laced into mine. "Jumping on the top bunk in me and Emmett's room for like an entire day once."

Bella laughed. "I'm sure it wasn't an entire day, but I remember that. It was a snow day and we didn't have to go to school."

"There's the time you faked being sick so you wouldn't have to go to school. And since both of your parents were working you knew you would be sent to my house…where I was in bed _actuall_y sick," I recalled with a smile on my face. "And when you got there you confessed to my mom that you weren't sick but just worried about me and wanted to make sure I was okay. So she agreed not to tell your parents and made you her little sick-Nazi-assistant. You spent all afternoon force-feeding me Saltine crackers until I yelled at you to go away… Sorry about that, by the way."

"It's okay. I only went to the hallway. I sat outside your door and coloured while you slept," Bella confessed.

"I know."

"What else do you remember?" she asked.

"You and Alice doing fashion shows on the back deck in the summertime. Mom told us we had to humour you guys and pretend to be really interested every time you came out in some stupid, fucking get-up," I joked.

"What, you don't like fashion shows?" Bella giggled, her words slurring a little. I quietly tipped over my flute into the sand and looked back to her.

"Fashion shows? Hmm…I don't know. Maybe you should try me again sometime," I purred suggestively.

Bella elbowed me in the ribs. I barely noticed because in my mind I was busy parading her around in scanty black outfits and the heels I just bought her.

"Hey, when are you going to come visit me in New York?" I asked with the natural progression of my thoughts.

"When do you want me?" she asked.

"That's a dumb question if ever there was one."

"I mean, when is a good time for you?" she clarified.

"Bella, if you are coming to see me, there isn't a single thing that I can't work around your visit, believe me." I was desperate to show her the city.

"That's not true and you know it," she said.

She wasn't implying that I had priorities over her, just referring back to one of the things we spoke about recently. I basically unloaded everything on her. How stressed I was with my thesis, and how I felt like I was pouring everything I had into it and still coming up short. I vented to her about school for hours while she just listened and reassured me occasionally. There wasn't much she could do but let me whine. So now she was going to be worried about adding to my stress by squeezing a visit into my already crammed schedule. I silently kicked myself hard in the ass for saying anything. Although it had felt good to talk so openly about my fears with her, I needed it.

"Bella, please, please come visit me. Soon," I begged.

She rolled around so that she was on her stomach, propped herself up on her elbows, and smiled at me. "How about Valentines Day in New York?" she offered.

_Yes._

I think my grin that touched both ears was answer enough for her.

"Settled." She nodded. "Funny, we've never really had a Valentine's Day date. Ooh! We should see how many cheesy Valentines things we can cram into one trip," she squealed excitedly.

"Red roses," I said in an obvious tone, playing along.

"A mix tape," Bella giggled.

"Box of chocolates that no one will finish," I joked. She glared at me.

"Trip to the empire state building," she suggested – reference to one of her favourite old movies, _An Affair to Remember_.

"Blow-job," I added with a straight face.

Bella giggled uncontrollably and jabbed me in the side.

"What?" I scoffed.

She just rolled her eyes.

"I think that is a very traditional Valentines' Day gift," I defended vehemently, already planning where I would like be when I receiveed said bj.

"Fine. Then…diamonds," she countered, raising her eyebrows at me in demand.

"Come to think of it," I continued, ignoring her. "I think blow-jobs are customary for _all _holidays."

"Ah," Bella sighed, looking pensive. "For example, New Years Eve?"

"Exactly." I waggled my eyebrows at her suggestively.

Suddenly, what began as a joke was no longer all that funny. Not that I expected Bella to blow me on the beach in the freezing cold. But I did have a sudden, fierce urge to feel her.

Something dark must have flashed in my eyes. How she saw it in the near pitch dark I had no idea, but she did. Suddenly we were both breathing erratically and staring into one another's eyes.

Bella pushed herself up off her elbows slowly and sat on her knees. Keeping her eyes locked on mine, she slowly lifted her leg and swung it over my waist and settled onto my lap. I was growing harder by the second. I knew she felt it underneath her. She used the leverage of her knees planted on the blanket at either side of me to shift herself back and forth over my lap. I lay back and watched her, both hands woven under my head. She chewed on her bottom lip and I found myself running my own teeth over mine subconsciously, wishing it were hers pinched between my teeth. She leaned back onto her palms and wiggled her ass over me intentionally. Her hair was a black blanket that hung behind her as she tilted her head back and moaned quietly. I hadn't even touched her yet.

_Fuck, she is sexy._

She leaned back up but her eyes remained closed. Her fingers fluttered to the button of her jeans and she popped it open. My eyes widened…among other things. I smiled and waited to see what she was going to do next. My half-drunk mind was swimming.

She pulled down the zipper to her fly and slid her hand down her pants.

"Fuck," I breathed helplessly.

It caught her attention and she opened her eyes to find mine boring into hers. Through heavy lids she kept my gaze as she lifted her hips off me for a moment, making room to slip her finger inside herself. She settled back down and sighed quietly while I watched her. My hands balled into tight fists underneath my head.

My chest was heaving rapidly to the same rhythm that her hand kept. She would open and then close her eyes periodically as she worked, glancing at me. I don't think I blinked once. I'd be damned if I was going to miss a single sixteenth of a second of how beautiful she was.

_So fucking hot._

I didn't dare touch her. I had no interest in disrupting her. She brought her self right to the cusp of her climax, her body trembled against mine and she panted and whimpered at her own touch. I whispered soft little things to her designed to both comfort and send her off the edge of the precipice. Then she shattered right before my eyes in the most beautiful and sexy way imaginable – baring herself completely for me to witness.

She kept her eyes closed for a minute as her breath slowly tapered back to its regular rate. When her eyes finally opened, heavy-lidded and slightly cross-eyed, I did nothing but arch one eyebrow at her. She bit her lip and looked away.

"Don't look away," I whispered, my voice shaky and gravelly at the same time. Her eyes slowly slid back to mine.

She pulled her hand from her jeans and I grabbed her wrist. Her eyes widened a little and her mouth popped open. She didn't say anything. I didn't let my eyes drift from hers as I wrapped my lips around her two fingers, sucking them into my mouth down to the base and swirling my tongue around them as I slowly slipped them back out, licking the tips for good measure. I licked my lips as I returned her hand back to her lap, which was essentially my stomach.

"Holy shit," Bella mouthed, her breath ragged.

Then she attacked me.

Her mouth crashed into mine while her fingers tangled and pulled violently at my hair before I even had a chance to smirk at her. Her hips rocked against me and her body shook.

"Do you have any idea how sexy you are?" she growled at me as her lips left mine and trailed under my jaw. When she sucked on my earlobe I tried not to whimper too loudly, but it was a lost cause. I loved when she did that.

"Me?" I scoffed back at her. Was she serious with that shit? "You're the one who's basically used me as a masturbation tool twice in one week."

She giggled but didn't reply except to continue kissing beautiful, warm, wet kisses down my neck. I wove my fingers into her hair, the knot at the nape of her neck having loosened almost entirely. I pulled at the elastic band that I felt under my fingertips and her hair came cascading all around her. It didn't seem to phase her but I certainly noticed. She always looked so sexy with her hair all wild and loose.

The situation was becoming increasingly urgent. Bella was on her knees, straddling me and kissing everywhere. Her pants were already unbuttoned, so I took the liberty of pulling them down around her hips a little more. She growled and instantly reached for the button on my jeans. I let her pop it open and pull down the zipper. As she tugged at the sides and I lifted my hips up off the blanket so she could pull them down far enough to release me.

She manhandled my dick expertly, but the complication of binding denim was posing a dilemma. We were both snarling and whining in frustration after a few minutes of awkward attempts. Despite being more than a mile down beach from the main boardwalk entrance, there was still a back road above the dunes and over the beach grass behind us. Occasionally, a car would hug the corner of the road and their headlights would wash over us. It was a small town and I wasn't keen on the idea of stripping bare and fucking on the beach and having it get back to the Chief of Police, especially after our awkward, non-vocalized agreement the other night.

It was with that in mind that I wrestled with trying to get her legs to spread wide enough to properly sink down on to me while still in her denim prison. Finally I bent my knees and pushed her at the shoulders until she reclined against my raised thighs. With her jeans pulled down enough to gather in front of her she was finally able to connect with me and we both sighed with relief as I easily filled her. Our eyes met and we both looked relieved.

She threw her head back and swore as I stretched her, the angle was a little different than normal and much deeper. Coupled with our desperation, we were both overcome with sensation. Bella wiggled until she could slide her arms under my legs. She cupped them over my thighs and held onto the tops of my knees, using me for leverage to grind against. My hands gripped her hips firmly but my fingertips were soft. Given the tight confines of denim that gave very little, we couldn't move much, but we didn't need to. I could feel her and she sure as hell could feel me deep inside her. It was more than enough.

Somewhere above us was a streak of white light, followed by another and another, filling the sky with mini explosions and fizzles of sparks. We ignored them and focused on us. I threw my head back into the blanket, maintaining my hold of Bella's hips, and groaned as I lifted my hips up to swivel into hers. It forced a cry out of her and within seconds we were both barrelling toward our much anticipated climax, groaning and whimpering the other's name as the waves of pleasure lapped at us.

With a lazy smile on her face, Bella climbed off of me. Her knee caught in the tangle of bunched-up denim and she tumbled onto the blanket gracelessly. I finished buttoning up my fly and rolled over to her, laughing at how she was struggling with her own pants. She growled at me which only made me laugh harder. I shoved her clumsy fingers aside and fastened the button of her pants. She grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to her, kissing me.

We kissed for what felt like hours. Bella's fingers twirled around strands of my extra-long hair. I revelled in the softness of her lips brushing along mine. I missed them during sex. While I fully appreciated that some situations required positions that were frantic and not ideal…I hated whenever I couldn't kiss her during love-making. It was such an emotional link between us that I longed for that moment where we were joined everywhere. And so I poured myself into the innocent, post-coital kiss.

I scooped her up and lay her in my lap. I held her as close as our heavy jackets would allow. More bottle-rockets exploded and whistled above us from the reserve behind the beach. I tore myself away from her lips just enough to whisper to her.

"Happy New Year, baby."

"Happy New Year," she returned, petting the back of my head softly with her little fingertips and lavishing her warm kissing behind my ear.

We both had to be on a plane in less than twelve hours.

* * *

NO DONT GO!

Dammit. Sigh...

Thanks again guys, you own me.

PS: for anyone who as asked. I sign my chapters "Air" because it is a really annoying nickname for Erin that has stuck... so.

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	19. More and More

*sighs*

This chapter was THIS close to being lost when Microsoft Word rebelled and held it prisoner. But I have a great attorney and was able to post bail, so enjoy.

But first I just want to thank all of you so so much! I read, worship, reread, and then sob quietly over every single beautiful review.

You guys own my ass, I hope you know that. Don't worry, I promise to behave myself AND I am house-broken, so it will be okay.

Make sure to check out the Secret Sex by erinbatt forum thread on Twilighted for some good times and spoilers if you ask nicely.

Okay, onward and upward...literally.

Oh...and this isn't Valentines Day.

*flees*

~xox~

* * *

Bella spent New Year's Eve night at my house. Or rather, it was officially the New Year given that it was past three a.m. by the time I turned into the driveway. We were exhausted, sobered up, and somewhere during the drive from First Beach back to Forks the mood shifted to something incredibly dismal.

_Tick, tock._

We felt the weight of every passing second as it slipped away form us. The way the stupid fucking calendar year fell, the first of January was a Sunday and classes began promptly on the second. I didn't have a seminar until Wed, but had a meeting with my thesis advisor Monday afternoon. We both had to leave that afternoon back to our respective corners of the country and away from one another. We didn't have a choice.

Gravel crunched under the Volvo tires as Bella held my hand silently, cradled in her lap while her head rested on my shoulder. I parked back in the garage knowing the car wouldn't be driven again for a long time. We fumbled up the stairs in silence and into my room. We shed our clothes, down to our underwear and I crawled into bed first while Bella finished undressing.

I was rubbing my tired eyes, grinding my fists into them until I saw stars flit across the black backs of my eyelids, when I felt the mattress shift against her weight as she climbed in with me. I removed my fists from my eye sockets and blinked a few times, adjusting to the moonlit room, and looking at where I knew her face would be once my eyes refocused. She was propped up on one elbow just watching me with an expression that mirrored all the pain and anguish I was feeling in my own heart. I hated this. I hated the fucking rollercoaster of pain, then elation, then pain all over again, with heaping side orders of isolation, powerlessness, and anxiety. Even though I was staring back into her huge, doe-eyes not four inches from my face, I felt the solitude creeping in on me. It began to tug at forearm, pulling me away from everything I never wanted to leave. It whispered empty promises in my ear and got violent when it was met with resistance. It was a bottomless black pit that I fell further into each time I "walked away" and every time was fucking harder and harder. Pieces of me died and what wasn't dead was left behind inside Bella.

We didn't say anything as we gazed at each other, diminutive smiles on our faces and grave eyes, as time passed. Words were unnecessary. We both knew. We both felt it. We both hated it. We were helpless.

But we weren't apart yet.

I licked my lips, sighed, and closed my heavy eyelids. I was trying to think of anything and everything all at once. Ways to steal an extended stay, ways to make the next few years more bearable, ways to make the next few _days _survivable. I tried to dig up the courage to appreciate the waning time we had together and not waste it feeling sorry for myself. I heard the sheets rustling and felt the bed shift again. I opened my eyes to Bella's bare back, long legs and fuchsia lacy thong walking away from me. She crossed the room and opened the door to the little bathroom situated between the two bedrooms. The room on the other side of the bathroom was unoccupied that night – Alice and Jasper always stayed New Year's Eve at his house.

I watched with a tired, sluggish brain, not entirely sure what she was doing. So I stayed put for the moment, enjoying the smooth lines of her lean back – the way it arced and dipped in the most feminine way in all the sweetest places. Her shoulder blades were prominent as were each little bump of her spine. She had dimples above her ass that I loved to run my fingertips over and place gentle, worshipful kisses at. I wanted to smooth my open palm all the way down her back and over her ass. I wanted to feel her skin under my touch. I drank in every inch of her. Her legs and the way the delicate lace wrapped around her hips with ruffles and then disappeared between her ass cheeks. The way her calves flexed as she walked barefoot across my floor. And the way her fingers strummed against the outside of her thighs, knowing that meant her mind was racing in a way that she was unhappy with.

Bella's right arm extended as she paused in the doorway. She leaned her palm flat against the doorjamb and then laid her head against her bicep. I wasn't sure if her eyes were open or closed, all I could see as her back. And judging from the erratic way it was contracting, she was either fighting off tears or succumbing to them. She stood there for a moment and then dropped her arm and entered the bathroom quietly.

I felt like the hesitation in the doorway was my invitation to join her. So I threw the blankets off and rounded the bed to the bathroom. I heard the cupboard door bang closed and then the shower being turned on. As I passed by the bedroom light switch I flicked it up.

When I got into the bathroom Bella was sitting on the edge of the vanity next to a stack of two bath towels, waiting for the water to heat up in the shower. She was staring at the steady stream as it hit the glass door on the other side, smearing ripples of water down in thick, smooth bands. Her eyes were glossed over and I was sure she wasn't actually seeing anything. I knew that look…that feeling. The helpless-numbing-anxiety. It was funny how all three sentiments seemed to contradict one another, yet could be felt simultaneously in the maelstrom of emotion and anger inside that I could do nothing about when faced with separation.

I flipped the light switch off, allowing the bright lights of the bedroom to feed into the small bathroom enough to light it dimly. I approached her and settled myself between her legs. One look at her face and if I thought my heart was clenching and aching before, it cracked with more agony than it was designed to endure. I placed my hands on either side of her against the countertop. I looked at her, while she was clearly still lost wherever she was inside her own mind. Her eyes hadn't blinked or shifted as I blocked her line of sight with the shower door. Her little body was still trembling from what I now saw was the suppression of emotion as she refused to let the tears that were pressing at the wells of her eyelids fall. I leaned down and placed a reverent kiss against her temple. She didn't look up, but she did blink. And finally, a fat tear pushed past its barricade and slid down her cheek. It hung off her chin as another rolled down to meet it.

I kept my hands on the counter and kissed her temple again, nudging her with my nose then trailing my lips down the side of her face to her jaw. I sucked the tip of her chin, taking away her tears. She shuddered and tilted her head to the side. I noticed her eyes were closed. I nibbled at the side of her neck, kissing my way to her collarbone. As I leaned into her I could just barely feel the inside of her thighs where they met with my hips. The sensation of her soft skin against mine sent the familiar fire through me. She moaned when I took a thin piece of skin between my teeth at the top of her shoulder and pinched it lightly. The sound wasn't urgent, or needy, or excited…it was sad. So incredibly sad. A quiet plea for something I could not grant her.

I continued down her arm until I reached her fingertips where they hung limp and resigned over the edge of the countertop. I closed my hand around hers and lifted it to my lips. I held it up, palm up facing me and placed the softest, most gently amorous kisses I could muster on the pads of each of her little fingers, beginning with her pinkie. I studied her face as I kissed her, and though she didn't open her eyes, one corner of her mouth lifted up in a faint smile. I smiled back, even if she couldn't see it. When I got to her thumb I slid it into my mouth and sucked on it, then slid it back out, kissing the pad of it and releasing her hand entirely.

I dragged my palm down her leg, getting down on my knees, my other hand stilled me by remaining on the countertop aside Bella. I worked slowly. Sleep, while it had been sorely lacking the latter half of my holiday visit, was no longer a pressing issue. All that mattered was the quiet, little woman perched on the edge of that countertop, enjoying the feel of my lips on her skin. And so I took my time. I placed warm and wet and worshipful kisses along her leg, connecting each kiss with a soft trail of my tongue. Her skin was salty from the combination of sweat, sex, and ocean air, and sand was getting in my mouth, grinding between my teeth. I couldn't have cared less. I swept the bridge of my nose across the arch of her foot as I cradled it in my hand, pressing the pad of my thumb firmly into the underside of her foot, knowing it would feel really good. I left a kiss at the peak of her arch and then slowly stood, tracing my fingertips lackadaisically along her legs and hips until I was standing before her again. Her eyes were still closed, her head lolled to the side, and while there was definitely a trace of the former sadness, the overall look on her features was one of sleepy satisfaction and pleasure.

I wrapped my fingers around her wrists and lifted them, depositing them behind my neck. Her eyes opened and she peered up at me from under her lashes, a faint smirk on her lips. The room was swirling with steam from the shower. Gripping firmly around her ribs, I lifted her easily, holding her to me. I snaked an arm under her ass to support her while my other hand popped open the glass door.

It was a tiny shower stall, hardly designed for two adults, but I climbed in any way, with Bella in my arms. As the hot water hit us, her eyes shot open and met mine. I set her down on her feet and she smiled, almost laughing, but not quite making it all the way, as she looked down at us still in our underwear. I shrugged and looped my fingers through the sides of her panties. Crouching down before her, I pulled them down her legs. She held onto the top of my wet head as she freed each foot. I stood back up and Bella mimicked my actions, tugging my drenched boxer briefs over my hips, releasing my evidently aroused dick, down my legs and to my feet. I could have braced myself more properly on the walls as I stepped out of them, but I wanted to mimic the significance behind leaning on one another, so I pressed three fingertips lightly into the top of one of her shoulders while she pulled the heavy cotton over each foot.

With our underwear in a soggy pile somewhere in a corner of the tiny shower stall we stood naked before each other and stared into one another's eyes, seeing everything we needed to see. There was truly nothing worth the pain it would cause to say anything aloud.

_I love you._

_ I will miss you._

_ I will wait for you._

_ I'm sorry._

_ I hate this…_

It had all been said a thousand times before.

I picked up the bottle of shower gel and squeezed some into the palm of my hand in a little white mound. Before I could replace it in the little built-in cubby hole next to the water control on the wall Bella took it from me. She put some in her hand and then snapped the lid shut and returned it for me. We both rubbed our palms together, spreading the shower gel between our hands and then moved to one another necks. We slid our bare hands along each others skin – cleansing, rubbing, kneading, stroking – from head to foot as the streaming shower rained on us, removing the soap as soon as it was smeared onto our skin. The warm sugary scent of the soap filled the steamed up shower stall. Bella's hair was down in heavy wet tangles, black strands of it snaking across her neck and shoulders.

I finished cleaning each perfect little foot, where I slid my fingers from the underside and up through her toes, cleaning in between, and then slid them back out, eliciting a deep, elongated moan from Bella. I stood and gathered all the wayward strands of her hair in my hand and laid them carefully down her back, dragging my fingertips back across her neck as my hands returned. She crouched down slowly, legs opening as she balanced on the balls of her feet and worked her slippery palms over my thighs and down my calves. Again, she mimicked my actions by rubbing my feet and sliding her fingers in between my toes. I understood why she moaned so thoroughly at the action, so did I, it felt fucking amazing. She stood up slowly, gliding her hands back up my thighs, stopping to swirl her little hands around my dick and between my legs a little more thoroughly than was necessary. I closed my eyes and sighed, leaning my head against the tiled wall and enjoying the feel of her hands on me.

When she was finished and I was hard as a rock in her palm, she smoothed her hands up my abs and over my chest, draping her arms over my neck. I lifted my head and opened my eyes to meet hers. Taking her face in my palms, I slowly pulled her downward, my fingers tugging on the back of her neck, as I sank to my ass on the shower floor, bringing her with me. With my heels firmly wedged into the opposite corners of the shower stall, I sat with my legs bent and my back pressed against the wall. The water rained down on me in fat drops. Bella sunk down with me, straddling me, and slowly lowered herself onto me without further ado.

Our eyes were locked on one another. We literally had not said a single word since somewhere along the one-oh-one. Her arms were still snaked around my neck and her chest pressed against mine. She was so fucking close to me. The instant lighting bolt of pleasure that cracked on me as I filled her gave way to a steady, warm, pulse that beat through me slowly. Her sharp little fingernails dug into the back of my neck, the skin soft from the warm water. I felt like every inch of her body was touching somewhere on mine. Our hips were glued together, sliding back and forth as we moaned what sounded like one long, steady stream of unrelenting sound. Our chests were fused; her legs had relaxed and curled around my back, locking behind me and melding the soft, supple inside of her thighs to my hipbones. Her arms held tight to my neck. Mine were wrapped around her back, criss-crossing each other holding her little body as close as physically possible to me. The only place we were not joined was our mouths. Which I promptly corrected.

I released the lock our eyes had on one another so I could lean into her, bringing my lips to hers. She met my kiss hungrily and instantly pushed her tongue between my lips. Our tongues massaged while our lips worked and our bodies writhed. We moaned as the water continued to beat down on us, trickling into our ears and mouths, and I swore that somewhere amongst all of it were tears smearing across each of our cheeks, rubbing into the others. Occasionally what would start out as a moan would slip into a stifled sob, and then drift back into a moan seamlessly.

My hands slid down her back to help guide her slippery hips back and forth over me, taking time to stop their ministrations only long enough to wrap back around her back and squeeze her to me tightly. I just enjoyed the feeling of being buried deep inside her body, even if I wasn't moving or helping to propel us toward a climax just sitting there with her that close to me, touching me everywhere, kissing me and moaning with me, occupying space inside her body was intimate enough. The response that pulsed and curled through us at just being joined physically was staggering. It was more than sufficient for long periods of time until I would lower my hands again, and replace them on her hips to continue rocking her against me, driving the sensations forward.

We made love in that way for hours. Stopping and starting again, hugging and kissing, moaning and crying, speaking without words, promising with touches, assuring with love, until finally we could take no more and we climaxed together staring into each other's eyes, our foreheads pressed together. Bella's sweet breath fanned out across my wet skin, managing to warm and cool it simultaneously. Her forehead slipped from mine and landed against the top of my shoulder as she folded her body further into me, entirely spent in every way imaginable. She stayed there for quite a while, lying against me, the water freezing cold but neither of us coherent enough to notice. I hugged her tightly and buried my face into the crook of her neck, smothering myself with her, still deep inside her little body as she stayed wrapped around me. We hugged until we finally became aware of the fact that we were shaking from more than just emotion as the freezing water goose pimpled our flesh and snapped us out of our reverie.

I placed a quiet kiss at her neck, my lips lingering long after the chaste kiss ended, until Bella dug her sharp fingernails into my scalp and dragged them along the nape of my neck and over my shoulder, intentionally leaving faint red trails on my skin. She braced herself on me and pushed into a standing position. My dick slid from inside her and whimpered it was so sad. Bella wobbled and grimaced, her legs unsteady and more than likely on pins and needles from being in the tangled and cramped position for so long. She offered me her hand to help me up. I stretched my legs and shook them out carefully before finally reaching behind her to shut off the water. Bella climbed out of the shower as I continued to hold her hand. She reached behind her to hand me a towel off the counter without looking, and we dried off in absolute silence. It wasn't an awkward or tense silence, just heavy. We were each trapped within the confines our own minds, swimming in dread.

I finished drying off as Bella moved into the bedroom. I looked at my reflection through the steamed up mirror in front of me. I swiped my palm across it, sliding aside the moisture and looking back at myself through the wet streaks. I looked empty. I looked tired and lonely already. I looked like New-York-Edward. It was a reflection I was very used to seeing scowling back at me. I hated that reflection more and more every day. I grumbled at myself and turned out the light.

The lighting in the bedroom had changed, while the overhead lights were still on, the subtle grey glow from outside was beginning to seep in. Bella was sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but the old FPD hoodie she wore to the beach, towel-drying her hair. I pulled on a pair of flannel pants and grey tee shirt, and then rummaged around in my duffle bag for a pair of regular boxer shorts. I tossed them to her so she wouldn't have to put on her messy, sandy jeans from the night before. She caught them and smiled flatly at me. She pulled them on then sunk back onto the edge of the bed looking like her body was made of wood. My whole heart broke at how crestfallen she was. I would sell my soul to be able to be together for longer, but we were both so entrenched in out our universities that transferring was no longer a realistic option. We were just going to have to brave it out.

I crossed the room, reached down, and buttoned the two little plastic buttons at the front of the boxers for her. She actually snickered under her breath as I did so, winking at her, my fingers grazing her skin. The smells of maple syrup and bacon were wafting into the room from downstairs so we knew we needed emerge and make our way down.

Just before we descended the stair case, Bella in front of me, I reached out and pulled back on the hood of her sweatshirt. She turned to look at me and no sooner did her eyes meet mine than I had her pressed hard against the wall. Cold droplets of water tickled my hands as they fisted into her hair, pulling at it. I kissed her like I was a dying man. I truly felt like it.

Every time it gets harder. I wanted to smash my fist into the wall beside us just to feel something break because I fucking told it to.

When we broke apart she walked away without looking at me, but slid her fingers in between mine and held my hand as we clomped heavily down the back stairwell. Just before we rounded the corner to the kitchen her hand dropped out of mine and it devastated me.

We were met with three pairs of wide, parental eyes as they were clearly staggered at the sight of us entering the kitchen together. Charlie and my dad sat at the breakfast table while my mom was at the stove finishing up some eggs. She smiled sweetly at us and said a "good-morning," while our fathers just gaped.

"Hi daddy," Bella said in a voice I swear to god I didn't even recognise. It was the first real word she had formed since we left the beach hours ago, and it came out forced and high-pitched, like there was a vice-grip around her throat. I instinctively shot my fingers up to my own throat, rubbing and swallowing thickly, feeling the same chock hold myself.

"Bells," Charlie grunted in greeting. I had a feeling his eyes were narrowed on me, but since mine were on Bella, I couldn't be certain.

"Why don't you kids sit down and have something to eat," my dad suggested in a warm, soothing voice that for some reason made me want to fucking sob. He folded up the newspaper he was reading and tossed it next to him on the window seat, then gestured at the table for us.

I pulled a chair out for Bella, and then sat down next to her, staring at my lap. Silently, two plates filled with food that smelled delicious but I knew would go untouched, dropped over our heads and onto our placemats. My mother stood behind us and reached each of her hands up to pat our heads simultaneously. I heard her sniff as if she too was stifling an emotion and then she walked back to the stove to serve everyone else. I was sure she noticed that both her left _and _her right hands were wet.

Breakfast was quiet as far as Bella and I were concerned. Eyes kept shifting between Bella and I as we pushed the food around with a fork, holding hands under the table. We weren't concealing the action that was just were our arms hung limply at our sides. Anyone who got up from the table saw us.

A lot of throats were cleared, and it seemed like on more than one occasion someone stopped a sentence after only saying half of it. I kept waiting for one of the patents to say something about our relationship. It was obvious, we weren't trying to hide it the way we once had, and the pain of an impending separation was written all over our sad, droopy, little faces. It was only the five of us at the table and it would have been the perfect opportunity to say something…but no one did.

My parents retold some of the highlights from the night before at the benefit, which included a silent auction that had raised a record-breaking amount for the pediatric ward, much to my father's elation. Also, apparently Alice had lost a pair of twelve-hundred dollar pumps after forgetting where she threw them on the lawn outside. Mom said she spent the entire night in the back yard, where I knew from experience the ballroom music would filter through the open veranda doors, teaching Jasper how to waltz properly. Jasper, to his credit, had a great time and was a sport about it. Mom even said he was quite good by the end of the night. I was glad he was such a good man to her. She deserved it, and as dumb as it maybe was, it made me worry less about not being around for her as much as I wished I was.

After breakfast, Bella rode home with Charlie to pack and get ready to go to the airport, forced once against to say her good-bye's to her dad. Charlie had to work so my parents were going to drive us to the airport. Our flights left within two hours of each other, so we could check-in at the same time – entirely intentional.

It was yet another stiff, silent car ride to the airport. Bella and I were in the backseat of the SUV staring out our separate windows, hands connected on the centre seat between us. My knuckles were white as I clutched her little fingers in mine, as if I could keep her near me by just fucking holding on for my life. Distinct snivelling sounds came from Bella's side of the car.

Dad parked along the curb outside the front of the airport and he and mom piled out. There was no point in them going in, we were going to check in immediately and cross security where they wouldn't be able to go any further with us. I looked over at Bella for the first time since we got in the car over an hour ago. Her eyes were rimmed in red and her lower lip quivered. I wiped the tears from her cheeks and sighed. Reluctantly, I opened the car door, the sunlight assaulting my eyes violently, fuelling the vulnerability I was already battling.

Dad retrieved our bags and stacked them by the curb as I hugged my mom. She clutched my head in her hands and kissed my cheek firmly, standing on her toes to reach me. I hugged her tight.

"You'll make it, baby," she whispered in my ear, her lips pressed in a lingering kiss against the side of my head as she refused to let go of me yet. I wasn't sure if she was talking about general loneliness, school or Bella, but they were words I needed to hear regardless. "We are so, _so_ proud of you."

"I love you, mom," I replied, squeezing her hard enough her toes lifted off the ground. Her body shook with tears and I, yet again, felt bad for leaving them to go to my pompous east-coast school when there should have been sufficient schools closer to home. I should have been smarter. I should have thought more long-term. Had I not been such a stubborn, naïve, teenage asshole, I could have been a lot closer to my family and my girlfriend. I would have been able to visit everyone a hell of a lot more and the pain wouldn't be nearly so all-consuming. My family had always been an atypically close unit. It truly pained any of us to be apart for extended periods of time.

_And then there's you…_

I released my mom and Bella was standing right next to me, waiting to hug my mom herself. Our eyes met and something inside each of us died a little. It would be revived the next time we were together. But the cycle was taking its toll.

While my mother cradled Bella to her, swaying them back and forth and murmuring loving words to her as if she were truly her own daughter, my dad slapped me on the back in a typical male bid farewell. He reminded me to get back to him about what my roommates plans were for the upcoming year.

My parents were graciously still paying for the three bedroom apartment for all of us, charging my buddies minimal rent. My roommates were both finishing up their undergrad programs and graduating in June and neither had made any decisions yet as to what they wanted to do after. If they weren't going to be sticking around I told my dad that I was not interested in replacing them. I would rather let go of the apartment and find one where I could live by myself…_or whatever._

I promised him I would let him know as soon as they got their asses in gear and made a concrete decision. We all hugged and kissed good-bye one last time through an abundance of tears, some stifled, some flowing freely. Then I scooped up my duffle bag, pried the handle to Bella's roll-away from her grip despite her protestations, and we made our way through the rotating doors, waving good-bye one last time.

After we checked in and passed through security, we made our way down to where Bella's gate was located. Her flight left first. We dropped our bags by a row of chairs and slumped down. She twisted in her seat without saying a word and draped her legs casually over my lap. I reached my arm out so she could fold into me and I held her against my chest. I hummed to her quietly while twisting the ends of her hair around my pointer finger until it pulsed, and then unravelled it, and the doing it again. I leaned my head back against the back of the seat and closed my eyes. They burned having received what felt like three-fucking-hours of cumulative sleep the entire trip. I didn't mind, I could sleep in New York. Nevertheless, after a few deep breaths I felt myself slipping away into the darkness, only to be pulled back by a soft little whisper.

"Edward?"

I opened my eyes and looked down at her where her cheek rested against my chest, but didn't respond, I waited for her to finish her thought.

"Is it February, yet?" she whined in a heavy, tired little voice.

I snorted, jolting her head up with the movement. "I wish it was, baby. But I swear to God, Bella, I might not let you get back on that plane once you are in New York with me."

I was serious.

"Good. Please hold me hostage," she whispered tightening her arms around me.

She was serious.

"_Hostage_?" I repeated the word, an obviously salacious idea behind it. "Like, shackled-to-my-bed kind of hostage?"

She giggled. I had to smile at the sound, no matter how feeble it was.

"You're insatiable," she murmured into my chest pinching at me.

I just smiled in acknowledgment, then let my eyelids droop shut again.

Before I knew it they were announcing the last call for her boarding. We were standing near the breezeway entrance like a cheesy romance movie as I shoved my tongue down her throat one last time, blatantly disregarding the stewardess who was anxiously awaiting taking Bella's boarding pass, no doubt highly uncomfortable. I laced my fingers into her hair and dug in so tightly she whimpered into my mouth, but I couldn't find it in me to care, I was too busy trying to consume her. There was a quiet thud at our feet when Bella let go of the handle of her little carry-on and it toppled over. Her fingers dug in at the base of my neck, holding me to her as we kissed good-bye. I wished the little crescent shapes she left behind would not have a chance to disappear before she was again clutched against me…but that would not be the case.

When we finally separated, our lips were red and swollen and Bella had little black streaks down her cheeks from tears I hadn't realised she was shedding again. She handed her boarding pass to the lady and looked back at me, offering me the world's most pathetic smile. I had to chuckle lightly at the sheer pity of it, returning it with my own signature smile, wanting that to be the last image she had of me until February. She shuddered and closed her eyes, holding onto the memory. I rubbed my thumbs over the streaks on her face, wiping them away, and then chastely kissed her lips one last time, savouring her taste, before sending her down the tunnel and onto the plane.

I stood frozen in my spot as the woman who had been taking tickets locked up the door, preparing for the breezeway to be detached so that the plane could take off, carrying away the love of my life. When she finished and turned around to see me still standing there, staring out the window at the plane, she cleared her throat quietly until I looked at her. She smiled. She was young, probably not much older than me, and she looked friendly in her blue polyester smock.

"Girlfriend?" she asked.

_Obviously._

"Yes," I murmured quietly, looking back to the plane. "Sorry about that."

"Oh, it happens all the time," she laughed and waved dismissively. But how are you at the gate? Did you like, buy a ticket just to wait with her and say goodbye?"

Begrudgingly, I tore my eyes away from the plane again and looked back to her. I smiled politely and pulled my ticket from my back pocket flashing it. "Gate A-8 to New York in two hours," I said in a flat, sardonic tone.

"Ahh. So you are both from Washington then?"

I nodded. "We're both away at university," I offered…I don't know why. All I wanted to do was continued staring at the plane that Bella was on.

"Oh, what are you studying?" the girl asked, seeming genuinely curious.

I glanced back at her and assessed her for the first time to see if she was flirting with me or some shit after everything she just saw. The wedding rings on her finger said she was not and that she was just a chatty girl, so I relented, trying to hide the irritation in my tone as I answered.

"Medical psychology."

"Oh, wow. Good for you. Is that, like, different than regular psychology?"

_And Bella thought I was insatiable. _

I licked my lips and huffed a bit, clearly a little agitated with her. She was unphased and her wide eyes stared at me waiting for an answer.

"More advanced. I'll need extensive post-doctorial training and I'll have to pass like a gazillion tests. But it will be worth it in the end to be able to help people who just don't know how to help themselves. My dad's a doctor, so, I don't know…the urge to help people is like bred into me, ya know?" I had no idea why I was offering up so much information. A glance out the window showed the plane taxiing away and my heart lurched. I know my face noticeably winced.

"Wow, a whole family of doctors, that's impressive. So, have you and your girlfriend been together for a long time?" Bella's plane was turning out of sight, wrapping around the building and aiming for the runways. I closed my eyes and inhaled, releasing the air out of my nose slowly, feeling the absence like a beating mallet against the insides of my body, denting and damaging me. All I wanted to do was fall to my knees and sob.

I looked back to the girl.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked.

"Have you been together long?" she repeated.

"Yes. Literally forever. I was there the day she was born." I smiled weakly at her, she seemed harmless.

She clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. After a moment she released her hands and shrieked at me. "Oh my God, that is so cute!"

I snorted at her. What the hell else was there to say? She continued.

"Well, then clearly you guys are meant to be together. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that, right?"

She had a big smile on her face and I noticed for the first time that she had a southern accent. I grimaced at her cheesy, misguided, and fucking retarded antidote.

_No. No it fucking doesn't. It just hurts._

"Hey, don't glare at me," she scolded lightly, gesturing to the little metal wings clipped on her lapel. "Flight attendant, remember? I know _all _about absence. You do what you have to do and it will all sort itself out in the end, right? Turbulence doesn't mean you don't get to where you're going eventually." She winked, clearly satisfied with her industry analogy.

"Thanks," I muttered at her, trying to muster up the will to offer her a genuine smile.

"Hey, we are a full service airline," she laughed. "And I'm no 'medical psychologist' or anything, but at least now you are a little distracted and I have left you with some encouraging words." She nodded and checked her watch. "Have a good flight to New York." And she walked away.

I muttered a "thanks" at her as she took off and I began walking down the terminal toward my gate. I had to admit, I did feel a little better. Obviously we weren't the first two people on the planet to be separated at one point. Couples survived all the time. We would too.

My feet were still heavy as I hiked all the way from Bella's concourse to the other side of the airportto where my gate was located. My boots trudged sloppily along the worn green carpeting and it took all my effort to restrain my emotions and also to not succumb to the grey fatigue that was swirling all around my mind, fogging everything around me. My heart was somewhere behind me, rapidly approaching thirty-thousand feet, and my limbs ached. More than anything, I still fucking hated airports with a fiery passion. They did nothing but cause me pain and serve as a constant reminder of the vicious cycle of loss I was trapped in.

But I tried to remind myself of the small words of wisdom the annoyingly chipper flight-attendant gave me. _You do what you have to do._

So I threw my duffle bag down on a plastic seat, slumped into the one next to it, and thought about what it was that I had to do.

* * *

For the record. I met my husband when I was a teenager and he lived in a different country.

I. Have. Been. Here.

In case anyone was wondering. I feel these kids pain.

Now...what is Edward thinking...

Next stop: **Valentine's Day!**

And believe me, Bella has plans.

Love me!

Air

~xox~


	20. Alice

Thank you for all the reviews and PM's about this story, your love warms my heart in ways I can't explain.

There is a lot of cursing in this chapter, it is intentional, it says a lot about Edward's growing frustration at the time in between.

So fucking deal with it. *giggle*

Air

~xox~

* * *

Alice. Sigh…

I checked my watch for the trillionth fucking time and looked around bored and waiting. I pulled at the hem of my shirt and straightened it out, rolling my shoulders back, then slouching again, staring at the back of a closed door. I had never mastered the art of extreme patience, though I really tried, especially when it came to the Cullen women whom I loved. And I did love Alice.

Every man should be blessed with a little sister, especially one like Allie. She's beautiful, and kind, and energetic. She's fun to be around and she always livens up every group, yet manages to humble you when you are alone with her having an intimate conversation. She always called me on my shit when she needed to, but knew when I need her to speak with soft, gentle words. She awarded me perspective. Having a little sister is like being bred into the role of valiant protector. It made me a better person, a better brother, and most definitely a better man for Bella. Words could not express how much I loved her.

I tried to remind myself of all those things as I tapped my foot against the wooden flooring in my bedroom glowering at my fingers that were strumming absently against my knees. She was spending an ungodly amount of time in my ensuite ensuring that she looked the pillar of fashionista perfection just to go out to dinner with her brother. Also when she demanded that we go all the way to Fifth Ave just to hit up 15 East, one of the world's most inordinately priced sushi bars. And one more time that night when she finally emerged from the bathroom in impossibly high heels that wrapped around her bare legs and climbed half way up her calves. She had on a black satin and tulle skirt and a plain white tank top tucked into the elaborately ruffled waistband. Her hair was black, long, and board straight, lapping at her shoulders as she grew it out. There was a white satin ribbon woven through it and she was incredibly beautiful, if not severely overdressed for Sushi even at the place we were going, but all the same I was honoured to be out with her. I stifled my annoyance and being late and told her she looked wonderful. She smirked because she knew she did and she also knew how hard I was biting my tongue to not bark about how long it took her to look that way when I thought she looked just as lovely when she first entered the goddamn bathroom. Women will never cease to amaze me.

I did roll my eyes a little, because really, she expected to walk _how _many blocks in the freezing cold New York City night in that get-up? I insisted that she wear a jacket, even if it "totally ruined the outfit", and I scowled at her when she pulled on a distressed black leather coat that would in no way be sufficient.

I just shook my head and grumbled under my breath, because arguing with her, especially when she had been immersed in her little fashion bubble all week, would prove futile. Alice was finishing off her fashion design degree in Seattle, and as a part of her final project she was invited to help a design house prepare for Spring Fashion Week in New York City. So she was crashing on my couch in the meantime. I loved having her there even though I had only justsaid good-bye to her a few weeks prior at New Years. She was a breath of fresh air in my otherwise stagnant New York existence. I guided her through the living room with my hand at the small of her back, glaring silent threats at both of my roommates as we passed them on our way out of the apartment. We said good-bye and went downstairs to hail a cab.

As so there we were. At a small cubby hole in the elite restaurant sipping Sake and nearly choking on chunks of salmon sashimi we were laughing so hard and nothing of importance. It was just nice having someone around.

With her feet curled up on the bench underneath her and her tiny little elbows balancing on the bamboo tabletop, what was a roar of laughter just a moment ago got cut short abruptly and she steeled her eyes onto mine. In blatant mockery of her sudden seriousness I mimicked her posture and stared back at her expectantly, my lips twitching to keep a seal on the laughter. We stared for a few moments until I couldn't take it any longer and arched an eyebrow at her in silent question.

"Why don't you ever talk about it?" she asked in a slow, deliberate voice as if she was afraid the question might send me running from the table.

"Huh?" I narrowed my eyes at her. But no sooner had I then dawning washed over me.

"You and Bella," she confirmed my suspicion in an uncharacteristically small voice.

She took her elbows off the table and busied herself with refilling her Sake glass, pouring the cup down her throat, refilling it, and then topping up mine as well. I studied each one of her little movements as I tried to organize my thoughts into something that would make sense to someone outside of my own mind. It wasn't going to be easy, especially after four glasses of Sake.

In a classic sign that I was defeated already, I scrubbed my hands over my face and sighed. Her little eyes met with mine as she took another sip, a small one this time, and she smiled encouragingly, waiting patiently for my answer. Everything about her posture, her actions, and her quiet little voice was so controlled and so unlike her that I knew she was trying her damndest to be respectful while breaching a topic that had undoubtedly been plaguing her for years.

I took a deep breath while wetting my lips with my tongue, preparing to launch into a long and thorough speech… saying what I had no idea yet. I blew out the air and gave her a tight-lipped smile.

"I don't know," was all I could manage, shaking my head.

She nearly spit expensive Japanese wine out of her nose. She wiped her mouth and laughed loudly while I just gaped at her in silence, at a loss for what to say.

"Oh my God, Edward. After all that huffing and thinking _that's _what you finally say!" She was roaring with laughter. I guess I could see her point. It was a pretty lame response. I laughed with her.

"I don't, Al, I just…" I growled in frustration and tried harder to organize my thoughts. I wanted to give her something. "It probably won't come out coherently or make sense to you. I've never had to put it into real words, you know?"

She waved her hand in a little rolling motion between us encouraging me to try, while she pulled another slow sip from her glass.

"Well. I guess it's just…" I had to pause. That wasn't the right way to start. I closed my eyes and thought for a moment.

Glimpses of Bella as a child in front of me for whatever reason, it was just the first thing that came into my mind. Bella at the lake house. Bella on a rope-swing. Bella hiding in the pantry with me during her mother's wake bawling so much that she ended up puking all over me.

The images continued flip like an old slide-show behind my eyelids in a slow progression of time. Bella needing me. Bella wanting me. Bella craving me and _having _me. Bella in my arms and on my bed. Crying. Laughing. Smiling. Kissing. Loving…

I opened my eyes.

"We've been through so much together." My voice was low and tight. Alice nodded in agreement. "And we lost each other once because we jeopardised what we had and what we were to one another. We were idiots about it and didn't think. And now because of that we can say we know what the definition of hell on Earth _really _is. It's losing your best friend and your lover all at once. It's being completely disconnected from the only solace you had ever known in life. It's being trapped in your grave of isolation, too stubborn or proud or just plain young to know how to climb the fuck out. We know all of that now. We respect that now. We never want to feel that lost again. We won't risk each other like that, or what we have. It's too precious to us."

Alice's eye widened just slightly at the admission that when Bella and I lost touch for two years out of high school we had lost more than just our best friend. She had been young at the time, or…a year younger than us anyway, and in her own high school bubble. She more than likely had no idea that Bella and I were so much more than just the friends we seemed to be. Nevertheless, she remained considerately quiet with a captivated look on her face waiting for the rest. So I continued.

"Now…I don't know. It's like there is just some unspoken agreement between us to hold on to each other in the meantime, to keep the ties strong while postponing everything else. All the things we want from each other and hope for in our futures have to wait. And so…were waiting. If that makes sense at all..." I trailed off, raking my fingers through my hair. There was no way I was going to get someone else to understand properly.

"It will make sense when you finish explaining it," she smirked at me – a subtle demand that I elaborate even further. I grimaced at her. She smiled.

"It's like…if we make it something that everyone is free to discuss openly, what happens then? Mom calls to chat while I'm at school and where do you suppose the conversation will eventually drift? 'How's Bella doing, what is she up to, when are you going to see each other next, what are your plans, how are you holding up?' Do you get what I mean, Alice? Everyone will have good intentions, but it will be the same shit from everyone. Constant fucking reminders of how bad this sucks right now. I will do nothing but talk about how miserable I am, as if just being fucking miserable isn't bad enough.

"And it will be new and exciting and when we _are _together back home everyone will be eyeing us. What little time we do get with each other will be monitored in ways that thankfully it isn't now. I get that everyone probably knows, or suspects something…but at least they keep their opinions to themselves and let us just _be_, right? So until the day we can live on the same goddamn side of the country and make an honest go of all of this, we just don't need the added bullshit and interference."

I shook my head then smacked it down on the table in exasperation. My forehead thumped loudly on the bamboo tabletop causing plates to jiggle and rattle. I was spent and pretty sure I wasn't articulating myself properly in any way. The silence that followed my convoluted speech confirmed that I had completely fucked up the attempt at explaining myself to my poor little sister.

I lolled my heavy head over to the side and peeked up at her through one eye. She was staring contemplatively into her Sake glass and nodding at her own thoughts, while her little lips twisted up in a small scowl.

"What?" I asked in a quiet voice, questioning both the nod and the grimace.

She looked down at me and smiled, amused at how spent and frustrated I looked.

"Nothing. I get it. That makes perfect sense, Edward. Well…as perfect and an imperfect situation can allow I suppose. And I promise if I want to know how Bella is doing, I'll call _her_, not you." She offered me a little wink that let me know she was both kidding and serious at the same time.

"Thanks," I groaned, straightening up.

"I won't ask again, but, in light of the mini-tirade…do you want to continue? I mean, how _are_ holding up? I can't imagine it would be easy. God, I'm going insane being this far away from Jazz right now and its only been a few days an still… Never mind. You get it." She abruptly cut herself off when my look turned absolutely murderous.

"Yes. I get it," I seethed through clenched molars.

"So?"

"So…" I took a huge, deep breath, ballooning my cheeks out, then blew it out and continued. She said she wouldn't ask again. No harm. "I spent the last three weeks in my thesis advisors office and on the phone with a few other universities back home and in Arizona to see if I had any hope in hell of getting into a Master's program and seeing if my year of seminars can be applied. I can't be guaranteed a spot anywhere and my work won't transfer. Not to mention that Columbia is a far superior school than any state university and has a fast-track five year Masters-to-Doctorate program that would take me closer to eight years at any other institution. I already have so much post-doctorial shit to do that…I don't know. I just think I need to stay put right now. But if it were feasible, in any way… God, I want nothing more than to just be wherever the hell she is, Allie. It fucking kills me. She's such a big part of me. She's the best part of me. Just having her near me, in the same room or at the same party even, it's like I can just breathe better. I feel like when we are apart I'm floundering. I'm not my true self and I can't take a full breath. I'm slowly asphyxiating and losing who I am in the process. And then I see her and it all the bad shit just disintegrates and she is all there is again. That and my love for her.

"So while I love this city, its getting increasingly harder not to resent it and everything it stands for. I don't know. I'm hoping that eases a bit once she comes to visit and my two world's officially merge, you know?"

"Ooh, she's coming for a visit?" Allie asked, clapping her hands together repeatedly, applauding the step in our relationship.

"Yeah, for Valentine's Day."

She giggled and rolled her eyes.

"I know, I know, it's cheesy. But we have never had a real Valentine's date before and she needs to come some time so…why not?" I defended, shrugging my shoulders.

"No, I think its cute. You just may want to send the guys out of the apartment for the weekend. The walls seem really thin." She winked at me then mock-shuddered at the thought.

"Oh, they are. And believe me, those fuckers owe me."

We spent the rest of the night discussing me and Bella. She was genuinely shocked to discover how long and how extensively things had been going on between us. I was quietly impressed with Jasper's loyalty. I had kind of assumed he would eventually tell her, which I would not have held against him. But the fact that he had kept my secret for so long made me respect the guy even more than I already did. I didn't tell Alice that he knew. I would let him handle that one however he wanted when she went home and spilled the news to him, like I already knew she would.

And with that, the list of people with firsthand confirmation of Bella and I was growing. I didn't mind, it was just like I told Allie, I didn't want to have to fucking talk about it every three seconds but most of my family isn't comprised of oblivious morons, or so I assumed they all privately had their own suspicions.

Alice packed up a few days later and I accompanied her to the airport to make sure she got there safely. I stood outside the cab at the front of the domestic airlock and hugged her tightly to me for a very long time. It was the first time anyone had come out to see me individually and the first chance Alice and I had to get in a nice and serious conversation in a really long time. It felt good and I loved her so much my heart bled sending her back to Washington. I made her promise to call me when she landed even though I knew she would call Jasper first, and then I drove away and back to my little hollow apartment. Half of me hoped my roommates were home so I could be distracted by hanging with them, while the other half hoped they weren't so I could sprawl out on my bed and mope silently.

They were home. They distracted me with beer. It worked wonderfully until I stepped into my room for the first time in hours after arriving home and I found a pyramid of red Smart Pop boxes arranged on the counter of my ensuite. A card balanced on top. Inside the shiny black envelope was a black card with a metallic Superman symbol on the front. The inside was blank except for all the handwriting.

_Edward,_

_ You are the strongest man I know. Your resolve and blind determination to accomplish greatness in your life inspires me daily and it always has. I just thought you should know that. _

_Of course, some people might say you are just a stubborn jackass…but whatever. I love you and if anyone can make something work when the cards appear stacked against them… it is you. You will always be my hero and I thank God for you every night. I am eternally lucky to have a brother like you._

_Thank you for letting me sleep on your smelly couch and allowing your silly roommates to oogle me all week. Enjoy the popcorn…like you won't._

_Hugs and Kisses,_

_Allie_

I traced my pointer finger over my little sister's giant, loopy signature, quietly rereading her words. ThenI flopped down on my bed and grabbed my cell. I knew she would still be in the air, but I wanted to thank her for the card so she could read it as soon as she landed.

_Who calls me a jackass? Did they really oogle u? I'll kick their asses. Pls say no cuz I don't actually know how to fight & they're New Yorkers, so… And I am lucky too. I love u. -E_

I stomped out to the kitchen and made two bags of popcorn because I knew as soon as it started wafting through the apartment the guys would want some. I chucked a bag on the coffee table in front of where they were watching TV and then retreated back into my room to eat mine in solitude.

Later that week my phone rang as I was walking home from a long day spent at the library. I seriously had to get a fucking handle on my thesis. It was scattered and all over the fucking place and my mind was numb all the time and lost somewhere else. It didn't take a fucking genius to know where, but still, it was unlike me to not excel academically, and quite frankly it was pissing me off. As was the stern meeting I had with my advisor the day before. It was all swarming in my mind as I walked, mentally outlining a new few ideas.

If I hadn't recognised the dirty, sex-and-hard-on-inducing-rock ringer I had assigned to Bella, I would have been annoyed by the interruption. As it was, my dick twitched and I eagerly grabbed the phone.

"Hey," I breathed into the receiver, climbing the stairs to my apartment.

She was clearly excited about something. She didn't even bother with a greeting. "Guess what I did today?" She squeaked. "You're never going to guess!" I grinned at her enthusiasm.

"Uhm…your homework," I joked with a laugh.

"Shut up...and no, shit. I guess I should probably get to that Twentieth Century poetry essay, huh? Anyways, don't be a dick. Guess again,"

"You're never going to graduate, Isabella," I grumbled, annoyed. Didn't she understand that the faster she finished her fucking undergrad the sooner she could move to New York and play house with me while I diligently finished my shitton of requirements?

"Guess. Again." She wasn't angry, just pretending. I pictured her all cute and huffy with her little arms crossed against her chest.

I sighed into the phone, she was so excited. I'd whine to her later. "Bought something incredibly slutty for your Valentine's visit?" One could hope.

She giggled, equal parts excited and annoyed at me.

"Noooo. But I can if you like."

"Oh no, please, whatever you do..." I teased, her playful mood rubbing off on me. I could feel the world's weight slowly starting to peel itself off my back. Bella always had the effect on me. She was good for my soul.

"Okay, fine," she continued when it was clear I wasn't going to guess. "So some girls from my philosophy class convinced me to go to kickboxing with them tonight. Oh my god, Edward, it was so fun!"

"Uhm...?" I tried really hard to imagine Bella in a kickboxing class. Not that I had ever been to one or had any idea of what exactly it entailed. But if at any point she had to kick a leg at the same time as move her arm or otherwise just fucking breathe… I couldn't picture that happening without incident or injury...not necessarily to her.

"Shut up," she giggled. "I did trip once and floor burned my knee, but it was so worth it. I'm going with them again Thursday."

"That's awesome, baby." She was so excited, how could I not be elated for her. Regardless of mentally tabulating how many different bones she risked breaking during the activity.

"I know! It will help work out some of my frustration, which was why they finally forced me to go today. They were sick of my grumbling and slamming books around."

"What? What frustration? Bella, what's wrong?" She hadn't told me about anything that had been upsetting her. I was instantly alert and focused solely on her as I walked through my apartment, nodding but otherwise ignoring one of my roommates who was sitting on the kitchen counter eating a sandwich, no doubt getting crumbs all over the floor. That shit drove me crazy. I sat down on the edge of my bed and listened to Bella.

"Oh no, silly, not _that_ kind of frustration..." She hedged. When I didn't say anything she continued. "You know, sexual," she mumbled, much to both my delight and great inconvenience.

"Oh. Yeah that. Fucking tell me about it." I crossed the room and slammed my bedroom door shut loudly with a kick of my foot for some privacy.

Weeks dragged by. Days dragged by. Hell, fucking hours were dragging. It was a slow torture knowing that I had to remain focused and yet I couldn't settle my mind on anything but Bella's impending visit. There was so much I was excited to show her and do with her. And, of course, I craved her company in the darkest and worst ways imaginable. I needed to see her and touch her and kiss her. I needed to hear her and hold her and be inside her and fucking live there.

It seemed like everything, everywhere was a reminder of her and us and what I was sorely lacking in my everyday life. I tried to remain positive about everything. At least I had her. We are in a solid relationship and she was my best friend. All in all, I was lucky. And the school situation was a predicament we had put ourselves into years ago, there was no one else to blame.

Yet I still wanted to gouge the eyes out of all the happy couples walking arm-in-arm down the university sidewalks and throw something at the TV every time some sappy fucking commercial came on.

Even my roommates had breached the conversation the other night when we were out with a large group of people at a local bar. We were just around the corner from our apartment, within stumbling distance at the close of the night and pounding back beers just being guys. But then when we were standing at the bar waiting for a new pitcher to be poured the conversation turned to what they planned on doing in a few months when they finished up their undergrad programs. They were both toying with the idea of continuing at Columbia. One wanted to earn a Masters in his field while the other thought of tacking on another major in order to stick around, postpone the real world and get more education.

Inevitably, the topic was flipped back onto me and they wanted to know if I had figured out a way to transfer out of the program I was in without fucking everything up. I gave them a run-down of how complicated it would be and the zillion and one reasons why it would be illogical and not worth it…and the one huge fucking influencing reason that even if I lost it all and had to start from scratch and add five more years to my education…it would be entirely worth it.

Bachelors to fullest, neither of them understood why I would risk so much for a girl. I spent the rest of the night ranting drunkenly about how Bella was _not _just some stupid girl I was fucking. I rambled endlessly about how and why I loved her. I told them that she had always been my best friend and that I truly felt we were fated to be together. I reminded them that she would be coming to visit in a few weeks and they nodded that they remembered while exchanging a look I was too drunk to interpret.

Their conclusion was that I needed to get laid. I couldn't have agreed more.

That was precisely what made every somewhat dirty text message from Bella so exciting. So when she text me as I crossed campus toward the big stone building that housed my advisor's office I took the opportunity to stop her dead in her tracks and take the conversation a different route – even if it was inappropriate timing. We seemed to have had so many heavy conversations over the last few weeks about how painful it was to be apart and how bad our hearts ached, among other fucking things. We shed tears and professed loves into lifeless, plastic fucking phones repeatedly, so I didn't feel like going down that route again at the moment.

_I'm in class and all I can think about it how much I miss you. -B_

I kept it light, hoping to distract her, thus slightly consoling her in the process. I loved her, and making her smile was my life's mission. With all of that in mind I typed out my response.

_Who is this? -E_

_Oh, just some random girl who sits beside you in seminar. I hate the days I don't get to see you and the train-wreck you pass off as hair. It's so messy and sexy. -B_

_Is that so? -E_

_Oh, yes! I long to twist my fingers into it and tug forcefully until you whimper. I have a hunch that you would like that sort of thing. -B_

_You have no idea how much. -E_

_Oh? What else do you like…mystery seminar boy? -B_

See! Fuck, so much better than more tears. My dick was swelling. I was outside of my advisors office squirming around on an old couch so that could present a slight problem, but whatever. I replied without having to think about it. There were so many things that Bella did to my naked body when she had full access to it that made me insane with lust, and love, and need, and fucking agony until I could fill her and release the throbbing ache inside me.

_My earlobe sucked on. Being ridden. Nails on my scalp. Whispers in my ear. Kisses on my neck. -E _

_Oh God. Please go on... -B_

_You naked on top of me…or underneath me, or beside me, or fucking bent over a table for that matter.-E_

_Oh my. But that could make for an awkward seminar. -B_

Fuck the role playing. I only wanted Bella.

_Isabella, if you are in a room with me next Wednesday for two whole hours, my dick would be inside you the entire time, seminar or not. How's that for awkward? -E_

_No awkwardness. Though now I'm really pissed I'm in class and not at home. Fuck. -B_

_Why? -E_

_Things are tingling. -B_

_Is that so? Well, that's because nothing you have in that drawer beside your bed can make you feel like I can. -E_

_Not even close. -B_

_You need me. The same way I am desperate for you. -E_

_Tell me about it. -B_

_I wish I was there, baby. I'm so fucking sorry. -E_

_Me too. Is it February yet? -B_

The old office door groaned open and my advisor poked his head out looking for me.

"Ready, Edward?" he asked, opening the door wider for me to join him. "Did you bring your re-evaluated proposal?"

I nodded. I had slaved over it. I had never hand-written so many notes, timelines, margin ideas, fucking footnotes, and organized mental insanity in my entire life. I was nervous yet confident that I had finally managed to come up with something that was exciting and mine alone. He smiled warmly and sat down. As I made my way into the office behind him I quickly pounded out a reply to Bella so I didn't leave her hanging any more than she already was.

_Advisor mtg starting. I love you so much, Bella. I'll call you after. -E_

To say I was early at the airport would be a gross understatement. But I was sick of pacing in my tiny-ass fucking apartment tidying and re-tidying uselessly while staring at the second hand on the clock in the kitchen that refused to move. It was aggravating how slowly time passed in between visits and yet it fucking flew by whenever I was with Bella, leaving me broken and alone again in the blink of an eye.

I had to shake my head out against the toxic thoughts before I let my brooding, anxious mood spiral and she hadn't even gotten there. I went back to the pacing and nervous fussing with everything. The place was an ancient New York City apartment, in an old building, on a crazy street, with a hundred identical buildings. It was furnished minimally with bachelor pad shit, not quaint and cozy like Bella's little townhouse in Arizona had been. I knew she wouldn't care, but I wished it had more warmth to offer her.

Deciding it wasn't going to get any different no matter how much I walked around rearranging things and grumbling under my breath, and that all I was doing was stressing myself the fuck out, I grabbed my jacket to leave. In my infinite wisdom I downed a Red Bull from the fridge, because apparently I thought that would _calm _my anxiety, and then I wandered outside into the freezing rain to hail a cab.

Once I found myself outside of the security gates at JFK I resumed my pacing exercises, wearing down their floors instead of my own. I had two hours before her flight was due in. I wandered over to the screens again at the edge of the concourse, quadruple checking that her flight was still on-time. It was. I continued pacing. It was two AM.

Despite the energy drink and my excited-jittery nerves, by quarter after three in the morning my head was bobbing into my palms as I sat in a chair at the bottom of the elevator she would eventually emerge from. My eyelids were impossibly heavy and I tried desperately to keep them open, but I must have lost the fight. I was in that weird, half-deep asleep and half aware on some level of the sounds around me, state. Visions of deep brown eyes and perfect pink lips danced behind my eye lids as the fuzzy weight of sleep hummed around me. I heard myself moan under my breath as gentle little fingers combed through my hair and scraped gently over my scalp, lighting it on fire in the most delicious way. I purred and lolled my heavy head into the touch. A quiet giggle poked at the edges of my slumber and tried to pull me toward it. Soft fingertips glided along my jaw and down my neck, dipping below the collar of my polo shirt, rubbing slow, deliberate circles into my skin, further relaxing the stiff muscles of my neck. Feather-light kisses moved slowly along the backs of my fingers where they held my head. One fingertip was encased in a beautiful, warm wetness as she sucked lightly on it then slid it from her lips.

I awoke with a start, snapping my eyes open, and gripping onto the thing that was right in front of me – on her knees between my legs smirking up at me from under her lashes to be exact. My fingers twisted in the stiff cotton of her jacket and instantly my eyes were on hers – rich, luxuriant, chocolate-brown pools of love and amusement – the eyes that haunted and assuaged my dreams.

"Oh crap," I breathed out in a quick huff, my fingers clenching tighter onto her. She giggled and bit that poor little lip that was permanently swollen. "I'm so sorry." I offered her my best smile. The crooked one that I knew would grant me a free pass. Not that I thought she would be upset, but I still felt bad.

"It's after four in the morning, Edward, don't be silly." Her voice was soft and slow, it cooed in an angelic lilt that was like a fucking lullaby in my ears, soothing the ache inside me. I cherished that little voice. I needed it. It was always distorted, hollow, and slightly different over the phone. I needed to hear it in person. As it was, it hummed right into my ear as she placed slow, tender pecks along the column of my neck, finally landing one on the tip of my chin, and then climbing into my lap so she could really look at me. The broad smile on her face was warm and excited and mirrored my own as I pulled myself out of the trenches of sleep.

I wrapped my arms around her. Her eyelids slid shut and she leaned into me. I licked my lips in sweet anticipation and, in the blink of an eye, our lips were pressed together. Her lower lip was always so full and silken against mine. Her tongue was sweet and wet and played nicely inside my mouth. The kiss deepened and my arms tightened around her back. Her fingers were tugging in my hair instantly and she squirmed on my lap, the kiss vibrating its way through her body and settling between her legs. I could relate – which she could probably feel. She moaned into my mouth and I moaned back involuntarily, the sounds muffled as they moved between us, swallowed up by more passionate kisses. My fingers were wrapped so tightly around her hips, holding her to me frantically, that somewhere in the back of my mind I was concerned I might be hurting her. If I was she wasn't complaining. Her legs hung over either side of my lap and our centres rubbed close to where they really wanted to be, only with way too many barriers in between us.

Sensing the building sense of urgency, Bella pulled back smirking at me, her lips red and swollen. She slid her little hands out of the hair at the back of my neck and along the sides of my neck, until she was lovingly cupping my face in her hands.

"I missed you so much, Edward," she whispered, her glistening eyes penetrating mine and pulling at my heart.

I leaned into her and nuzzled against her shoulder. "Isabella," I breathed in between kisses against whatever skin was directly beneath me – her lips, chin, jaw, neck, ear – pulling her to my chest in a tight embrace. Her name was all I could force out of my mouth for several long, thoroughly fucking enjoyable minutes, as I lavished upon her. She leaned into every touch and against each kiss, humming as our bodies reacted instinctually to one another and our hearts beat wildly yet at the same time…steadily. "I'm sorry I fell asleep." I laughed lowly under my breath, my lips pressed against the underside of her chin as her head spilled back into the palm of my hand, supporting her so I could kiss every hidden crevice. "Welcome to New York."

She giggled and drew in a long and shaky breath. "Can we leave this airport now? Please?" It was a needy sounding plea. I quickly stood, taking her with me. I threw my arm around her shoulder, kissing the shell of her ear and breathing heavily into it.

"Let's go, baby." I grabbed the handle of her bag off the floor at our feet and dragged it behind me.

As we walked outside I asked how her flight was and if she managed any sleep on the plane. While she spoke in a voice that poured a warm thick honey over my heart and melted my insides, I watched her. Her long eyelashes as she blinked slowly, briefly laying them against her creamy cheek, her mouth as it moved, her little pink tongue as it darted out to moisten her lips as she continued on. She was so fucking beautiful that it actually hurt me in a delicious sort of way. It was precious and painful all at once. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was the luckiest mother fucker on the planet. She was incredible.

I hailed a cab and then turned back to help her through the door as I held it open for her, looking at her fully for the first time since she had awoken me. She had on a knee-length cream coloured trench coat. It was double-breasted and ruched, flaring out just below her breasts in a beautiful and feminine way. The collar was popped up in the back and the two rows of large brass buttons on the front had the unmistakeable Burberry emblem on them. I knew it was the coat Alice and Jasper had given her for Christmas. I had been silently thankful for the unintentional foresight of the gift, given that Bella would have no need for such a coat in Arizona, but that she sure as shit would need it in New York in the middle of February. Although, after my conversation with my little sister the month before, I doubted that anything was unintentional behind the gesture.

As she ducked into the car and pulled her legs in, I noticed her stockings and the shiny, taupe heels. I shook my head, it all had to be incredibly uncomfortable travelling attire, but she obviously wanted to look good when she first saw me. It was ridiculous because she looked good in everything…or nothing. I sighed and closed the door gently, adjusted myself, and rounded the car to join her.

As we drove through the city, I pointed out a few things visible in the streetlamps to her, and promised to show her much more of the city in the morning…or afternoon as it may be by the time we emerged from the apartment again. We opted for the elevator instead of the stairs even though I was only on the third floor. We were tired and our legs were weak for some reason that I doubted had anything to do with the time.

We rode quietly, relishing in the electricity that sprang from each of us, collided somewhere in the middle, and then recoiled with a magnified force, drawing us to one another in that familiar, indescribable way. It was almost inhuman. It was overwhelming and glorious. I pinned her against the wall but the doors pinged open far too quickly and I growled in annoyance. She just exited the elevator and waited against the wall for me, having no idea where to go. There were only two doors in the cramped hallway. It was a very old building and had probably been a large house at one point a century ago, or a business or something, like most old New York City apartment buildings. I pointed and followed her as she made her way to the door, running my eyes up and down her backside, over her long legs, narrowing my eyes and tilting my head to the side. She was a little off and what the hell was with those stockings? I opened the door in silence, peering down at her, hoping she wasn't uncomfortable or regretting coming to visit me at my "other" life.

I had warned her in the cab and a zillion times before at how scanty and mannish the apartment was. As she slowly shut the door behind her, spinning and clicking the locks, I began rambling, pointing in different directions at different things and giving her a lamely narrated, stationary tour.

There were two closed doors off to the right, my roommate's bedrooms, where I assumed they were sleeping. The open living room was splayed out before us, with its real and scuffed-to-shit hardwood floors, an old couch with a wooden flap-top chest in front, acting as a coffee table. There was a decent TV mounted to the wall, my only frivolous purchase since moving to the city, and the pilfered X-Box that I stole much to Emmett's annoyance when I moved, forcing him to buy a new one for mom and dad's when we all got together and he had the urge to embarrass me by touting his virtual skills yet again. I waved my hand at the tiny but clean kitchen behind me, continuing the tour as her eyes slowly followed my hand. She leaned up against the door as I mumbled stupid shit about a lack of cupboard space.

_ Why the fuck am I nervous? _She had a weird energy all of the sudden and I was reacting to it in an odd way, getting jittery and rambling. I cursed the Red Bull that didn't even allow me to keep my eyes open and greet my girlfriend properly at the airport, but now seemed to be kicking in and fucking with my nerves. I nodded my head at the open doorway on the other side of the living room, the room behind it black except for the slight silver tinge that I new emanated from the combination of moonlight and the streetlamp right outside, through the large picture window that lacked proper blinds.

I looked back to her. She was just staring at me, shoulders pressed against the doorway, her back arched out away from the wood, her palms pressed against it. She was digging her toe into the floor, twisting her foot with trepidation.

"Bella, are you okay?" I had to ask – because she certainly was not. I wasn't sure what the fuck was going on and a slow sense of dread that I hated was creeping in on me. But her little smile salved any worry I had as she nodded slowly and blinking and taking deep breaths against the door. I was too far away, having drifted further into the room as I narrated the tour, to see what emotion swam beneath the surface of her eyes, so I had to trust her nodding as encouragement.

"Yes," she quickly verified. Then looking pointedly toward the short hallway where my roommate's bedroom doors were she spoke in a quiet, trembling voice. "They aren't in there by the way."

"Huh?" I narrowed my eyes and looked over at the doors curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know where they are, but they aren't here. I e-mailed them and asked them not to be. They were more than willing to oblige." A slow blush spread across her cheeks and her lip was held violent prisoner.

"You did what?" I asked as a deviant smile stretched across my face and my heart quickened, knowing whatever the fuck she was up to I was going to like. With one eyebrow arched sharply I looked at her, waiting for something.

"They'll be back tomorrow, but for now it's just you and me," she purred as she unbuttoned her jacket. Her voice was thick and sultry. I was mesmerised by the way her little fingers worked over the big buttons, moving slowly down her chest in a straight line. I found it incredibly seductive, whether that was her intention or not.

She opened the jacket and slid it off her shoulders, allowing it to spill onto the floor at her feet in a creamy, white heap. My knees buckled and I nearly fell to my knees joining the discarded fabric.

"Holy mother fuck…"

* * *

*high fives Bella*

Nice one buddy. Anything that brings a man like Edward to his knees is a total WIN!

In the next chapter...Bella rescues her shoe, if you know what I mean.

*wink*

Don't forget to check out the forum on Twilighted and come play with me on Twitter erinbatt

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	21. Need Want Now: I Love You

Okay. So This isn't this weeks chapter. It was the beginning of this weeks chapter, until I decided it had to be its own separate entity.

I don't know how you all will receive this...but it was really fucking powerful to me.

To write anything after the end was just to compromise the integrity of the emotion and sullied the whole thing for me.

And so this is a bonus. A short interlude of sex and emotion.

Enjoy.

xox

* * *

_Holy…_

It took me awhile before I was anything but an inarticulate mess. For several long minutes all I could think of was a gigantic string of profanities. I used the time wisely, however, using it to rake my eyes diligently up and down her body. She had a sultry smirk plastered on her face that matched her hooded lids and confident stance. She looked fucking sinful in the most heavenly way. Her little hands were poised at her hips, and an eyebrow was arched up at me while I unabashedly drank in every detail.

A slow, eager smile slid across my face and my eyes caught on fire. On unsteady legs I took a step toward her.

She held out one hand with her palm facing me and shook her head, effectively halting me. My brows knit together and my eyes widened in horror. My mouth gaped and it took a second before I could say something.

"Wha…?" Was all I could get out as I swept my eyes from her head to her toes for the thousandth time in the last sixty seconds.

"Where's my other shoe?" she purred. Her voice had taken on a deep, velvety texture as she slipped into the sexy character that matched her bold get-up. I was equal parts horrified and aroused.

"Huh?" I was all kinds of eloquent. She had my mind so foggy with lust I could barely see through it. I just wanted to _touch_ so badly. Fingers on satin. Palms on lace. Tongue on satin ribbons. Skin on skin. I needed to _feel_ her.

She shook her head at me and took a step forward. Smirking and playing her game, extinguishing every urge that raged through my body, I took a step back. I granted her a wide berth as she sauntered past me, her eyes watching me like a hawk to ensure I didn't move from my place. I wasn't sure I would have been able to move regardless, nothing was working properly inside my brain.

"Oh fuck," I mouthed as she strode past me and I saw her backside for the first time. Her eyes were on me. She read my lips and giggled to herself. She was within arms reach. My fingers twitched and things inside my belly clenched and unclenched in little spasms. I fought it all back and just watched, licking my lips and swallowing as my mouth literally pooled with saliva.

As if just having to watch her prance around the room wasn't torturous enough, she made her way over to where I had set her purse on the floor near the kitchen. With a quick glance over her shoulder and a sexy, little wink, she bent with straight legs, her ass in the air aimed right the fuck at me, and retrieved something out of it.

She continued past me, stopping once she reached the dark, open doorway of my bedroom. Leaning against the frame with her back to me, she dangled the object in the air. One beautiful and lonely black stiletto. With her forefinger hooked into the heel, she held it out over her shoulder at me.

"These would go much better with this outfit, don't you think?" she asked without looking back.

My smile amplified at her playful little voice and body language. I swallowed thickly. It seemed to take all the concentration I could muster. I blinked a few times. She giggled to herself and drifted into the bedroom, disappearing as the shadows engulfed her.

I practically fucking sprinted the eight steps it took to get into that room with her.

She stood in front of my closet as I approached her smiling like a buffoon. My tongue darted out to wet my lips as I reached for the door handle, sliding the old metal accordion to the side. She was so close to me I could feel the heat spiralling off her body to dance freely across my skin. I peered across my left shoulder at her, our eyes locking, every feature on my face twitched and jerked with suppressed anticipation. She shrugged slightly at my intensity, chewing on her lip and grinning.

Slowly, my eyes closed, I took several steadying breaths, so fucking turned on already and I hadn't even touched her yet. I lowered myself to a crouch and reached into the closet. Opening my eyes I nearly caved and touched her, my face was so close to everything it wanted. The corner of my upper lip raised a bit in a small, lopsided smirk, contemplating.

"Don't," she said in a breathy, yet firm whisper, reading my mind.

_ Dammit._

I shook my head lightly, thoroughly enjoying every second of her sweet torture.

With the orphaned item in hand, I stood back up with exaggerated slowness. I held it out to her with a huge grin plastered on my face. I had a feeling it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Her tiny fingers wrapped around the shoe, carefully avoiding mine, and she turned to walk away.

_And then there's that view again. _

I tilted my head to the side and watched aptly while nearly coming undone.

She leaned her ass against the corner of my nightstand and bent at the waist to unfasten the shiny, taupe heels she had on.

Given the strict orders I was under, I had plenty of time to gawk at her as she changed her shoes. I leaned back against the wall by my closet and studied her body. She wore a strapless, fawn-coloured, satin bustier with an overlay of intricate black lace. The lace was so distressed it had an almost feathery texture to it. It wrapped around the cups of her breasts and dipped down into point toward her navel. She had matching satin panties with thick bands of the feathery lace stretched across her hips. They seemed relatively innocent at first glance; until she turned around revealing the back of the little half-thong-underwear-devil contraption was made from sheer lace and hugged her ass cheeks like they were hand-painted on her skin. Her legs were covered in nylons made of the identical lace. The fabric looked incredibly soft to the touch…which I was beginning to salivate for. They stopped in the middle of her thigh in a thick band of black satin. The contrast against her milky thighs was stark and made her skin appear that much softer and somehow more vulnerable. I needed it.

Dropping the offending taupe heels to the side, she quickly slipped her toes into the black heels I gave her for Christmas and sighed dramatically. She sauntered slowly back into the centre of the room, just a few feet from where I stood still as marble, and did a glorious little twirl for me.

"Isn't that much better?" she asked smiling sweetly at me. She twisted her toe into the floor and bent her leg, modelling the shoes for me.

I didn't answer. I couldn't get my brain to send a signal to my tongue…it was too busy spamming my dick. So I just nodded.

"You shouldn't have held my poor shoe hostage," she purred. "It did nothing to you, and do you know how many times I could have shown it some love over the last eight weeks?" Her voice was aural sex. My head went from slowly nodding yes to dumbly shaking no as her questions shifted.

She giggled at how unintelligent I had suddenly become at the simple sight of my girlfriend dressed in a slutty bustier. But to my credit, it had been a really long fucking eight weeks and I was severely sleep deprived on top of it all. And to Bella's credit, the ensemble wasn't actually slutty. It was classy, obviously expensive, and expertly chosen to fit her. It somehow even managed to appear sweet and honest while maintaining its sexy intention. It was perfect for her in every way.

She took a small step toward me. The silvery lighting through the window combined with the lights streaming in from behind me in the living room illuminated her in an angelic way. She reached her little hand out to me, but then stalled it just before actually touching my chest. My skin hummed in anticipation then rioted when she fell short. She bit her lower lip and looked off to the side as if she were pondering something. I studied her every breath.

_I'm so fucked. I can't wait._

"Is it safe to say you like it?" she asked, looking back to me, her eyes searing into mine, a manicured eyebrow raised in question.

I smiled.

"And you wanna touch me?"

My eyes narrowed, brows pressed together, and my lips formed a small O, blowing a stiff and shaky breath through them.

_So much._

"Where do you want to touch the most?"

Now that was a question to be taken seriously. Could I only pick one place? I wanted to fucking touch every inch of her. I wanted to lick and rub against her entire body. This was torture in its purest form. Tantalus.

I took a step toward her, effectively bridging the gap between us entirely, as I pondered her question. I reached out my right hand and her eyes widened in silent reprimand. She hadn't given me permission just yet. I snickered at her, even being all sex-kitten-esque she was so fucking cute.

_Bella._

"Just one place?" I asked, my hand paused momentarily between us, our faces inches apart. I could barely keep my smile or the excitement in my voice contained.

"Just one," she confirmed in a quiet whisper, barely moving her lips, which I was suddenly enraptured by.

My eyes glossed over with lust and adoration as I looked at her.

_God, I love you._

I wet my lips while slowly looking her over, deciding. When I met her eyes again I noticed a telltale rose flushing the apples of her cheeks. I cocked my head to the side at her, knowing she would understand the gesture to read, _now, after all this, really? _

She bit her lip and shrugged in response.

My fingers waggled in the air anxious to make contact with anything at that point.

Slowly, I brought my other hand up and together they slid over the lace wrapped around her hips, with my fingertips grazing her ass cheeks. Her eyes snapped shut immediately at the contact and she hummed. I squeezed the bone and flesh and dug my fingertips roughly into her body. Need and urgency tormented through me, moderated by the sweet warmth of familiarity.

Then I pushed.

Her eyes flew open.

I guided her backward until she hit the foot of my bed. Her eyes were dancing as they stayed glued to mine. I smiled my warm, crooked smile at her. Her returning grin was like coming home after a long day…which was precisely accurate.

I leaned in to smother her face in kisses but she pulled back.

"You already picked your spot," she clicked her wet little tongue at me, staring pointedly at my hands on her hips.

Incredulous, I gaped at her.

_Fine. Two can play at this game. We have all weekend._

With my palms still flush against her, I roughly spun her around so she was facing my bed. She giggled as I pulled back on her, forcing her to snap at the waist and stretch her arms out onto the mattress in front of her. The bed was a good six inches lower than her middle, causing her ass to point right at me in all its lacy glory. I licked my lips and continued.

Keeping one hand on her left hip, my other ran flat against her right – slowly along the hipbone, over the top band of the panties, and down along her backside. I angled my hand downward and cupped one perfect, lace-covered ass cheek, the tips of my thankfully long fingers slid along the fabric between her thighs. I could feel the warm moisture seeping through. Her entire body shuddered in response to my slight touch.

_Need. Want. Now._

I leaned over her back, careful not to make contact anywhere I wasn't allowed. I used my palm on her ass to stabilize my self as I whispered, "don't move" in her ear.

I kicked off my shoes and rounded the corner of the bed. Climbing up at the head of the mattress, I slowly crawled toward her. Her palms were outstretched on the comforter as she leaned forward smiling at me. I winked at her as I neared. The angle her body was at made her breasts spill forward into the very top of the bustier. They looked supple and heavenly and I momentarily questioned my decision, I wanted desperately to touch those. But no, I had chosen right.

On all fours, so close our noses were nearly touching, I stared deep into her eyes. Neither of us blinked. We took in one another's breath for a few more moments until I spoke.

"I love you," I whispered, my heart clenching with the overwhelming reality of those three small words. It had nothing to do with the visit, or the outfit, or the unforeseen naughty game we were playing. I just needed her to feel the power of those words before I continued.

"I know," she whispered back. I tasted her breath on the tip of my tongue. It made my mouth water.

Her eyes were soft and they returned the sentiment in fervent silence.

After a few more seconds of staring at each other, I lowered myself to my belly underneath her and wiggled closer. I pulled at her hips and placed a kiss right at her centre, intentionally letting my hot breath push through the sheer fabric and tickle her.

"Oh God," she moaned from somewhere above me.

After a slow swipe of my tongue against her sensitive skin and a conflictingly chaste peck at each hipbone, I rolled off the bed and walked back around behind her. I yanked my shirt over my head and tossed it somewhere behind me, like I gave a shit where. As I pulled down my jeans and boxer briefs I noticed she hadn't so much as twitched. It dawned on me that I had somehow snatched the power from her stiletto-wielding hands and taken it for myself. I snickered under my breath at my obvious skills while silently acknowledging the symphonic parallel to our relationship that had always been about trust and balance.

It was my turn to lead.

Hearing my snickering, Bella peered over her shoulder at me. Her eyes went straight to my eager dick and widened with want. I reached down and quickly yanked my socks off, because standing naked with socks on was very _un_sexy. While I did so, Bella playfully wagged her ass in the air at me.

_Oh you are going to regret that…or maybe you won't. _

The smile on her face was radiant as she teased me. I palmed the lacy place that was my only permissible area, squeezing and kneading her flesh in my hands while trembling I was so eager to crawl inside her. I slipped my fingered underneath the material and pulled the waist away from her body on either side. I slowly slid the panties over her ass and down her legs, not touching her skin or the downy strands of distressed lace that covered her legs. She lifted each foot in turn, ridding herself of the temptress-devil-panties. I had crouched down before her so I could help guide the fabric over her shoes. As I looked up, I had to smile at the sight just inches from my face. She was panting with anticipation, not being able to see what I was going to do next. I slowly rose and placed a small, innocent kiss on one ass cheek, and then repeated the gesture on the other, the tip of my nose skimming along her sensitive skin. My hand snaked between her legs and cupped her but didn't move. I just held her firmly.

"Oh my God," she gasped. Her back arched and her hips quirked out, driving her centre deeper into my palm and at a better angle for me to enter her. All the while she waited for me to do something…anything. I pulled with my hand against her pussy until she was exactly where I wanted her, then dragged it back slowly, artfully avoiding her most sensitive spot just to fuck with her. My fingers slid along the wet folds of skin and everything inside me pulsed with want.

Now that she was lined up perfectly, my moistened hand held onto her bare hip while the other gripped my dick and teased her entrance, getting it ready for me. She pushed backward trying to claim me faster, but my hand held her hip firmly, keeping her still. She whined a desperate little plea that didn't have a chance to finish because it turned into loud cry as I suddenly filled her completely in one thrust. I couldn't wait any longer.

Profanity.

Lots and lots of profanity filled my mind and perhaps even escaped my lips. She was so warm, so wet and tight and perfect and mine. The moon made the satin of her outfit glimmer in front of me as I held her hips and rocked in and out. I went to grab her shoulder but remembered it wasn't in the acceptable zone. So I ghosted my palm a half an inch above her from shoulder to ass. I slowly mirrored the dip in her back and the swell of her hip as my hand radiated heat floating above her. I swear she felt the caress as if I had actually made contact, because she moaned her body caved underneath me. Her foot slipped on the hard wood, but I had such a firm grip on her that her ass stayed in place. She screeched a little when my fingers tightened to hold her in place, but it was a good kind of yelp. Within seconds her inside walls were clamping down around me and she came, whimpering my name.

I continued moving gently within her until she quieted, and then pushed on the back on her hips to still her. Bent over her body and panting, I had to close my eyes tight and focus on my breathing in order to calm myself. As she regained her composure she tried to squirm from my grip and grind against me, wiggling her little ass back and forth in front of me while I was still deep inside her.

I fingers tightened on her hips. "Wait, please. Oh God, Bella, please wait. Wait, wait, wait…" I chanted the word under my breath trying to physically push away the wall of release that was threatening to topple down on me.

I generally hated that position and refused to climax that way. It offered no intimacy. The entire reason I made love to Bella was to _make love _to Bella. It was about our connection and our devotion. It was about feeling good and holding each other close. It was about as much skin as possible, slick and moving against each other. The transference of love.

With weak knees and an entire body that couldn't stop trembling no matter how hard I tried, I sunk down to my knees, my hold on Bella's hips bringing her down with me. Staying connected to her, she sat in my lap straddling my legs that were folded underneath me. Clearly forgoing the game, I wrapped my arms around her front and pulled her until her back was pressed against my chest. Her head fell onto my shoulder and I hugged her tightly, my lips placing soft, tender kisses along the column of her neck and dusting over the top of her shoulder. Her skin was hot and soft beneath my lips and it almost brought tears to my eyes at how much I missed it. One little hand reached up and wove into my hair, holding onto the back of my head for leverage as she tried to move on me in the awkward position. She found a slow, almost indiscernible rhythm, but it was so slight that it was nothing but agony. Even so, ripples of sensation caked in emotion spread through us simultaneously. I eased the bear hug I had her in and leaned her forward so we could get more movement out of the way our bodies were knotted together.

Bella's little palms gripped my bent knees and her head flopped forward, resting against the side of the mattress. I rang my fingertips slowly down the length of the black satin ribbon that laced down her spine, fingering the delicate bow at the bottom. As Bella swivelled her hips against me, shooting white sparkles into my vision from the onslaught of sensation, I gasped and pushed desperately on that wall of release, groaning out her name. I tugged gently at the ribbon until the bow untied, then slipped my palms under the boning and pulled it away from her body, loosening the corseting until I could slip it over her head.

I needed more skin. I needed more connection. I wanted more Bella.

I bent over the top of her, her forehead still resting against the bed, and moulded my chest to every inch of her back. I rest my chin on her shoulder and tilted my head to face hers. My arms pressed across her stomach, clutching her to me.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me," I whispered reverently against her neck, holding her.

She cried. Not cried out in pleasure. She actually started crying. It was soft and it quietly shook her entire body. I hugged her close and moved slowly inside her. I asked her to look at me and I kissed away all the wetness that streamed across her cheeks, knowing they were happy, overwhelmed by emotion tears.

The sun was rising, sending golden and orange rays into the room, and we were both utterly exhausted. We came together as I pressed my cheek against the sweet divot between her shoulder blades and clutched around her torso, trying in vain to absorb her into me so I would never again have to be without her. Her fingers intertwined with mine and she squeezed. We trembled and sobbed with release against one another.

Wordlessly, I stood, holding her with me, and we crawled onto the bed and fell asleep, having never known a deeper love or intimacy than we did that night.

* * *

See what I mean?

We just need to tiptoe out of the room and let them sleep for a while.

The regular chapter will be up Thursday as usual.

Thank you guys. I genuinely swoon over every review.

Hearts,

Air

~xox~


	22. Sight

I know...I'm sorry.

I was distracted by some things. In one word:

*ahem*

So here it is. Valentine's Day ExtravaganzaDay One.

Also I have posted a pic of Bella's little ensemble and her shoes on my profile by popular demand.

Now that I have figured out how to do that, I will go back and do it for other goodies.

Thank you to all of you. You make this so fucking rewarding!

(I swear when I am excited)

Enjoy!

* * *

The front door banged shut loudly, pulling both of us from our sleep. We blinked, yawned, and stretched against one another, smiling lazily as our eyes adjusted to the light in the room.

"Coming or going?" Bella groaned through a yawn, covering her mouth with her little hand.

I sat and held up one finger to indicate silence for a moment. I listened carefully and heard the distinct _click, click _of the tumblers in the deadbolts as they turned from the outside.

"Going," I whispered, laying back down and grinding my head into the pillow, trying to reclaim the comfortable position I had been in before I was awoken.

Bella pulled the blanket off of her legs, whining as she had to kick and thrash just to free her feet. Then she smirked as she saw the reason her feet were tangled, still in her stockings and heels.

I stretched and grabbed my cell off my nightstand to check the time. It was 9:33AM; we had only been asleep for a few hours. It was _much _earlier according to the time zone Bella was used to.

I expected her to want to go back to sleep, because I sure did, when instead she rolled over, her chest pressed against mine. She kissed me deeply. My hand roamed over her bare back and down her ass, humming into her mouth. She sat back on her heels and brushed her crazed hair off her face, tucking it behind her ears.

"I don't want to know what time it is. I'm getting in the shower," she said with peppy determination. She jumped off the bed, and I watched as she moved around my room gathering the things she would need.

It was quite a sight to behold. The woman you love, sexy as hell, hair mussed and tangled from a night of lovemaking, gloriously nude, in only lacy stockings and heels. I involuntarily licked my lips as my body reacted. She mumbled something about "not having much time together" and stripped from the remnants of her ensemble, then padded gently into the ensuite.

Begrudgingly, I rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweats, and followed her. She was fiddling with the shower taps when I came in. I pulled a clean towel out from under the sink and handed it to her as she watched me with an odd smile on her face.

"You have to crank it _way _farther than that if you want any kind of hot water," I said, demonstrating the tricks to the ancient shower as I turned the knob so far into the red the water should have been scalding. I shrugged at the piece of shit shower. It was the middle of the city and blocks from a university – things didn't get modernized unless it was absolutely vital. She giggled at me and stepped in, waggling her eyebrows suggestively at me.

_Not a chance. _

As much as my body wanted to, it was taking all of my energy to just stand upright I was so tired. I needed food and coffee before anything else, including sex. I grimaced at her, kissed the tip of her nose.

I was starving, so I headed toward the kitchen to throw together something for breakfast, knowing we were going to need the energy if we wanted to make it through an entire day of sight-seeing on less than three hours of sleep. But before I could make it more than two steps a wet little hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, demanding a kiss. I tasted the fresh mint on her tongue and felt bad I had yet to brush my teeth. I fixed that before I went out into the kitchen to make breakfast.

I poked my head in both of my roommate's bedrooms to see if anyone was left in the apartment. From the state of their rooms it looked like they had both come and gone already. I dragged myself into the kitchen and stared blankly at the fridge. My eyes glossed over and I stood half asleep in a daze for a moment. A flicker of yellow paper moving in the drafty apartment caught my eye.

The tee shirt I had thrown over my shoulder the night before must have landed in the living room, because now it was draped over the edge of the TV mounted to the wall with a yellow post-it note stuck to its frame. "ATTA BOY" was written in typical guy chicken-scratch with a big arrow pointing to the shirt. I yanked both down, straightened the TV, and snickered under my breath. I was glad Bella hadn't seen the display, even if it waspretty damn funny. At least it wasn't her panties.

A few minutes later, I had two plates of French toast ready – because it was quick and easy and not cereal – together with two mugs of Orange Juice. It was all balanced precariously on an old pizza box that had been stacked on top of the fridge waiting to be recycled. I kicked open the bedroom door and almost dropped the makeshift breakfast tray. Bella was stark naked, her long wet hair dripping down her back as she bent over and rummaged through her bag looking for something. Her eyes shot to the open door in a panic.

"Oh, no one's here don't worry. Like I would let them see you naked." I glared at her.

"Oh, good. I think I forgot my blow-dryer," she grumbled. "I _know_ had it out and on the counter ready to pack, but I can't find it." She continued digging through the little carry-on suitcase while I sat the pizza box at the foot of the bed.

"I think one of the guys has one. I'm sure they won't mind if you borrow it. You're hair takes forever to dry and you can't go out in that cold with it wet like that," I offered as she stood and harrumphed, scowling at her suitcase as if it were to blame. "But in the meantime… breakfast first."

Twisting her hair up into a towel, she climbed on the bed and grinned at the French toast. "Creative," she said, taking a bite off one of the plates and nudging the pizza box. "Thank you." When she pressed her lips against mine I tasted the sweet syrup mixed with her usual delicious flavour and I refused to let her out of the kiss quickly.

My fingers slid down her arm and followed along her ribs to the dip in her waist. I finally pulled back and eyed her, poking at her side. She squeaked and jerked out of the way. I had to reach out and grab the two mugs quickly before they spilled off the box. I glowered at her and she glowered back, mocking me.

"You started it. Why are you poking at me anyway?" she asked, retrieving her mug from my hand.

"I don't know," I mumbled, returning my free hand back to her waist and feeling her in earnest. "You feel different."

"Mmm, yeah, less squishy," she said with a mouth full of French toast, nodding in agreement.

"Bella, you were never _squishy._" Was she serious? Fucking girls.

"Oh, yes I was. I still kinda am, but it's the kickboxing. I've been going twice a week."

I knew that, she usually called me on her way home from class to tell me how it went and say goodnight since it was quite late in New York by that time. But she had neverbeen squishy. She was just a little soft around the edges. Always lean, just vulnerable and girly. And definitely _not _athletic. It wasn't that I cared she was firming up a little with the workouts, obviously, but I secretly mourned the familiar softness that I had always known.

"So, what's on the agenda for today?" she asked while chewing, totally oblivious to the fact that she was sitting, piling toast into her mouth while entirely naked save for the towel on her head. I was much less oblivious. I smirked but kept my thoughts to myself, lest she decide to pull a blanket over her lap and ruin my view.

"Funny you should ask that," I said, hopping off the bed and crossing the room. I retrieved something from my messenger bag and dropped it by her knee. She eyed the piece of bright and shiny paper with a smile, then set down her fork so she could inspect the it better. I sat back down and cut into my own breakfast as looked through the handmade brochure with wide eyes.

"This lady at the library that I see like everyday helped me make it. It's your itinerary for the weekend." The piece of paper was expertly tri-folded with a black and white backdrop of the New York City skyline and an overlay of a faint pink heart. Inside was broken into three days, a column for each. Each column had headings indicating the theme for that day.

Day One: Sight

Day Two: Taste

Day Three: TOUCH

"Uhm…can we fast-forward to day three?" Bella asked with wide, excited eyes, giggling. She flipped the paper over front to back and studied it. "You went through all this trouble?"

I just nodded, continuing to eat.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, baby." I leaned over our plates and kissed her innocently. "I've been dying to show you New York, _plus _we have so much festive cheesiness to fit in, that I needed an itinerary to organise it all. Making it into a brochure was the librarian's idea. She said girl's like grand gestures," I added with a wink. Not that a piece of bubble jet paper was a grand gesture, but she knew what I meant.

"Oh…we do," she confirmed with a grin. She looked back to the day's schedules and read quietly. I left each day relatively vague, mentioning only in short, bullet-pointed descriptions some highlights of the city at the particular time of year, and some folklore. There was nothing specific which she no doubt noticed. "I can't wait to see what you have planned for each day…_especially _the third day."

I chuckled at her as we finished up and chatted about the agenda. She mentioned some of the things she felt obligated to do on a first time trip to New York City, and I assured her that most of them were part of the plan, but also that we could do anything she wanted. The agenda was entirely flexible; I just had a few ideas.

After we were dressed and ready to go, we ran downstairs to catch cab. I smiled at the grey sky. It was cold as shit, but dry…that was considered a win by both New York City _and _Forks standards.

I gave the guy the location, Central Park South, and turned to a giggling and bouncing Bella to wink at her. Her animation was endearing.

"You really like planning things and keeping me in the dark, don't you?" she laughed, taking my hand in hers and resting it on her thigh. She was obviously referencing New Years Eve as well as the hundreds of other times I surprised Bella with little things. It was true. She was always so easily excited and genuine about her glee that I loved doing shit like that for her. Her reactions made it priceless.

"I really don't have a set plan, Bella. We can literally do anything you want, I promise. Central Park is just a great place to start. It's like…"

"Central?" she finished my thought for me.

"Yeah," I laughed. "Basically. So much stuff is within a few minutes from it, so we should start there. Plus it's beautiful, and pretty amazing that it's just right in the middle of such a huge city. Not that we are unfamiliar with greenery." We both laughed at that. Forks was the greenest place on the fucking planet.

The cabbie let us off near the carriage rides. Bella appeared in awe. Her eyes were the size of saucers as we stood between Fifth and Sixth Ave and she took in the massive park behind her, the skyscrapers in front, the shops, the people, the bustle, the traffic and horns and sirens and the faint trickle of the water moving in the creek somewhere inside the park. New York City truly was an adventure, and standing there in between the lush calm and the bustling chaos watching Bella absorb it all, I felt like I was experiencing it for the first time all over again. Only this time I had a familiar, little hand inside mine and the comfort of her proximity. It couldn't have felt any different than I had my real first time.

My heart fluttered as she twirled around, her eyes bouncing from sight to sight. She turned back and smiled at me. "So beautiful," she whispered.

"I know," I agreed in a low, gravelly voice, referencing something else entirely. She paid my serious tone no notice and followed happily as I led her off the main sidewalk and into the park stretched out before us.

We walked a little ways, hand in hand, Bella giggling and leaning into my shoulder as we approached a large white carriage. It was the perfect one and I was secretly thankful that it was at the head of the line-up. Some of the carriages I had seen around the park were old and rickety, but this was one wonderful. It was enamelled white, with thick white spokes at the wheels and a beautifully draped canopy overhead the plush, black loveseat at the far back. The driver had on a tattered jacket with tails. He looked like someone's friendly grandfather. He smiled widely as we approached.

"Edward?" she whispered, stopping as I grinned foolishly at her.

"What?"

"We do not need to take a carriage ride," she giggled, shaking her head.

"Sure we do," I argued. "It is romantic and cheesy. Not to mention _very _Valentine's Day-ish."

She smirked but stayed quiet as I greeted the driver and got us all organized. I helped Bella into the carriage and away we were led by a beautiful gray and white dappled horse with black hair and a gramps in a top hat. It was perfect.

"Let our first cheesy Valentine's together commence," I joked as we started rolling down the street. I placed my arm behind Bella's shoulders and hugging her tightly to me.

On the bench in front of us was a stack of blankets. I pulled one forward and shook it out over us as Bella snuggled deeper into my side hiding from the wind. Her soft lips pressed against my neck once, lightly and not at all sexually, yet the fact that she just did it so naturally somehow made it erotic. I wondered briefly if sex in the open-air buggy was considered a public faux pas.

Her fingers pushed through my hair, brushing the wayward bits blowing in the wind off my forehead. "Edward, the Cheesy Valentine's extravaganza began three days ago _on _Valentine's Day, if I recall correctly." There was a hint of humour laced with irritation in her voice that made me chuckle.

I looked down at her, her cheeks growing rosy from the wind and her dark hair fluttering as we carried down the street. "I have no idea what you are talking about," I deadpanned.

Of course, I did.

Tuesday was the real Valentine's Day, but I refused to allow Bella to miss that much school. I insisted that it was just a day and the spirit of the holiday could easily be fulfilled a few days later. She ultimately agreed to book the plane ticket for Thursday after classes, but then demanded to stay until late Sunday evening. I tried to argue that by leaving so late on Sunday she would be too exhausted for classes on Monday, but she was stubborn. Truthfully, I was elated. Leaving late Sunday gave us a bonus day that I hadn't been counting on having. I wanted all the time in the world with Bella. I hated having to settle for three day intervals spaced way to fucking far apart.

Tuesday when she came home from class there was a notice taped to the door indicating a package had arrived for her. She instantly text me, wary.

_I have a package… -B_

_Really? Huh. What is it? -E_

_I don't know, you tell me. -B_

_No clue. -E_

_Right. Well, stay tuned, I'm going to go get it now. -B_

_I'm always tuned… Is the post office near? -E_

_It's the one on campus, so yeah, I guess. WHY? -B_

_No reason. I love you. -E_

_I'm worried now and reserving my opinion of you until after I pick up this "package." -B_

_I'm wounded. -E_

I could have sent her some candies, or chocolate covered Oreo's, or a dozen red roses – all of which would be holiday appropriate, cheestastic gifts. But no. Where was the fun in that?

I sent her bright pink teddy bear the size of a coffee table. He was holding a huge red heart in between his paws that said, "Be Mine" in white embroidered cursive. There was a white heart on the underside of one foot with the words, "I love you," written in red. I sat on my bed reading and laughing to myself the entire forty-five minutes it took to hear back from Bella.

_Cullen, are you kidding me right now? -B_

_What? -E_

_You're a dead man. -B_

_You don't like him? -E_

_I love him…it's not him I have the problem with. -B_

_Then what's the problem? -E_

She hadn't responded after a several minutes, so I gave up, always the impatient man, and called her. After three rings she answered, sounding out of breath.

"What?" she scoffed into the phone. All I could do was laugh. "Oh you think this is funny. Everyone is staring at me, my cheeks are the colour of the heart this thing is holding, and my arms are tired. I still have like two blocks to go. And _now _I have the phone stuck to my ear. I'm sweating and out of breath."

"Awww, baby, don't be like that. Admit it. He's cute."

"He is cute," she easily agreed.

"Good, see? So be nice to him. Does this mean you won't be mine?" I asked swallowing back more fits of laughter, figuring that until she could get back to her apartment and put the damn teddy bear securely on the ground, she would not be in the mood to hear it.

"I'll have to think about that one," she huffed, clearly teasing me.

I was glad as I held her next to me in the carriage that she eventually conceded. She later called me back to make sure I knew she was playing and that she was, in fact, all mine.

A thought suddenly occurred to me.

"Hey," I shrieked, pushing her off me and spinning to look at her. "Is that why you tortured me with the lacy get-up last night…because of the teddy bear? Was that supposed to be some kind of payback or something?"

She smiled, her eyes twinkling. "Can that really be called torture," she whispered bashfully, as if anyone could hear us, as we drove down the streets.

"There were a couple of minutes when I was in agony not being able to touch you," I admitted.

"Well yes, that _was _payback then," she snickered, her eyebrow arching deviously.

I just laughed at her, shaking my head. "Hey wait, I meant to ask. You went through airport security like that? Are fucking crazy?"

"No." She smacked my shoulder for calling her crazy. "I changed in the restroom when I got off the plane. Geesh."

"Oh. Thank God."

The thought occurred to me while I was making the French toast that morning and I had meant to ask her. The idea of her being frisked like that and perhaps even seen by a man other than myself made me murderous. I had never been the jealous type, but some things just weren't for sharing. Some things were all mine.

As were leisurely rolled along, I pointed some things out to her, especially all the infamous department stores. Her eyes lit up as we passed each one.

"God! Alice must have had a field day here," she squealed with a bright smile.

"Yeah, she had to buy an extra suitcase to check full of new things. Fucking ridiculous. She's so spoiled," I muttered shaking my head, knowing that my father would pay that bill, but also not meaning the insult half as much as it seemed. We were all pretty spoiled to be honest. We were good kids and there was an abundance of love, respect and generosity in our family. None of us could be faulted or judged by it. Bella rolled her eyes, knowing all of that as well.

After the carriage ride, we strolled hand in hand through the park. We spent hours just walking and talking. Laughing and connecting. Not that there were any ties left unfettered between us. I was thoroughly convinced that no two people on the planet knew each other better than me and Bella. At the same time, we were never at a loss for new things to say to one another. And if there ever was silence, it was warm and welcomed.

I checked my cell for the time as we stopped at the peak of a little cobblestone bridge. Bella leaned over the railing on her tip-toes to peer into the black water. I fisted the back of her jacket and shoved my cell back into my pocket.

It was lunch time, and Bella agreed that she was hungry. After pinning her against the side of the bridge for a few minutes in a highly inappropriate public affection, I forced myself to calm down, breath regularly, and we made our way out of the park. As we walked back to the main road, I told her that one time in the summer I heard they did little boat rides up to the Belvedere castle and that we should do that as a continuation of the cheesy romantic festivities. She beamed at me clearly happy with the idea. Something I couldn't quite place melted inside her eyes and smile, and she agreed adamantly. She then declared that every time she came to New York should be "cheesy romantic extravaganza" time, just for fun. I was entirely okay with that – especially if it meant more outfits and heels and insanely delicious sex. My mouth watered at the idea…among other things.

We climbed into a cab and I asked the driver to take us to Eighth Ave and Thirty Seventh Street. He nodded and Bella scrunched her face up at me in question. Any New Yorker would have known instantly where we were going to have lunch, but Bella had no clue.

"You'll see," I whispered, pushing her hair off her shoulder and kissing her just below the ear.

What started as a peck quickly escalated until I heard a soft moan escape her lips. Ignoring the look from the rear view mirror, I continued. Once I met with her soft skin, and felt the silken texture against my lips…once her little fingertips clawed lightly at my knee…once her faint, breathy moan slipped through her lips and the sweet fire exploded through my body…I needed more. Bella always created that reaction in me. It was visceral. It was something so much stronger than want or mere desire. It was the itchy, anxious, desperate _need_ of an addict. I had to have her. Consume her. Own her.

It was the all-consuming, marvellous misery of fucking love.

My hand travelled the entire length of her torso, unapologetically riding over the swell of her breast, cupping and squeezing, then settled firmly against the side of her neck. I clutched her to me as I continued to lave all over the other side, along her jaw and toward her mouth. I peeked at her face through heavy lids just before I pressed my lips to hers. Her head was flopped back against the headrest, her eyes closed but fluttering.

Eleven very quick minutes later, the cab driver cleared his throat and dragged us from our happy place. Resentfully, I threw a few bucks at him and exited the cab. I tried to make it over to Bella's door first to help her out, but I had to pause to adjust myself. By the time I rounded the cab she was already closing the door behind her. It was a never ending conflict with us. She knew I liked to open car doors for her, yet she was always so independent and eager that in our entire lives I think I managed to do it maybe four times.

I forgave her quickly, though, as she stood with a smirk on her face shaking her head at the glowing orange sign on the other side of the street. I pressed the crosswalk prompt and came up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her into me. She hummed and melted like butter against my chest, allowing me a moment to absorb and savour her.

"Since when are hotdogs cheesy or romantic?" she breathed as I sucked on her earlobe. She responded by wiggling her ass against me.

_Fuck, it was going to be a long day. _

I had so much more planned, but at the time all I wanted to do was axe the entire day and spend it wrapped up with Bella inside my bedroom.

The sidewalk alarm chirped annoyingly at us letting us know it was safe to walk. So we walked hand in hand. I turned to her, smiling, my eyes gleaming with every ounce of affection I was brimming with as she beamed back at me.

"Well, you can get cheese on your hotdog," I answered her question finally after being forced out of my lust-induced stupor. "And I think a coconut-champagne slushee is _incredibly_ romantic, don't you?" I laughed as we got in the always present line-up for the simple hotdog vendor.

Grey's Papaya was a New York staple. It made my mouth pool just to think about it. It was one of those places that once you thought about it, or it came up in conversation, your mind obsessed over it until you could scratch the itch. It was a cross between a street vendor and a fast food joint, and it was as fucking delicious as a hotdog could get.

I explained all that to Bella as we waited in the line up, several people around us turning with dopey grins to concur with everything I said. Someone pointed to the sign that claimed that "no one served a better hotdog" and wiped drool from the corner of their mouth. I chuckled and nodded at Bella as if to say, "See, told you so." Besides, I knew there was going to be no shortage of elaborate fanfare the following day when we went out for our proper Valentine's dinner. Today was about being a tourist and having fun.

Once we had our dogs and drinks in hand, we made our way outside. Leaning against the bright yellow pillar at the corner of the street we sat our drinks at our feet and chowed back the first class meal. Bella moaned in appreciation when she took her first bite. My eyes widened, my mouth stuffed full, as I nodded reverently.

We chatted about the city in between bites and sips, and people watched. We both nearly choked on our hotdogs with stifled shock as a nearly naked man in leather chaps and a Lakers sweatshirt walked by on the other side of the street on stilts. I shrugged and shook my head.

_Gotta love the city._

Afterward, I asked if Bella was up for some more walking or if she wanted to cab somewhere. She spat out the word "walk" before I even finished my question. Her cheeks flushed and I had a feeling she thought if we ended up in the back seat of another cab we would both walk away with "public nudity and inappropriate conduct" violations from the city's finest – which I would have gladly taken for the trade off.

I nodded at her, agreeing wholeheartedly, and led her toward Forty Second Street where we could avoid the subway and cut over to Fifth Ave. We spent an entire hour running around Times Square like idiots, wandering in and out of dime-stores with novelty touristy crap, and stealing kisses every few minutes. I bought Bella an _I heart NYC _tee shirt and we took a shitton of pictures, lit up by the flashing neons and scrolling signage.

Eventually, we moseyed along down the street toward the shopping district of Manhattan. I pointed out a bunch of fun things to her as we walked, such as Bryant Park, the massive Public Library that I knew would practically make her orgasm, and all the little museums scattered along the way.

Once on Fifth Ave, we slowly ambled along, window shopping and occasionally entering a store if it piqued either of our interests. My arm was snaked around Bella's back, my fingers wrapped around her ribcage holding her to me as we walked, rarely straying.

We took our time on the busy street, wrapped up in our own happy and cozy bubble. As we passed by Rockefeller Center Bella squealed and suggested that we go ice-skating. I stopped dead in my tracks and scowled down at her as she bit her lip and clapped her hands like a little kid. It had nothing to do with the fact that the line-ups were always somewhere near eight-hundred and sixty seven hours long. I was something else entirely. When she finally looked back to me, I raised an eyebrow at her. She shrugged and acted as if she had no idea what I was thinking, when we both knew she did.

"Bella, have you even been back on ice skates again since The Great Hokey Pokey Incident of '98?" I asked as my eyes automatically scrolled down to the faint scar just above her chin where her teeth went through her lip.

"No," she admitted laughing and blushing as she remembered wiping out in dramatic fashion, caking the white ice in blood during Alice's thirteenth birthday party.

"Well, I don't exactly feel like spending the rest of the day driving back and forth between doctors and dentists again while holding a Ziploc bag of ice to your face, so…" I trailed off, pulling her forward again. She mock-pouted at me until I added, "Besides, I'm sorry baby, but the rink closes for the year in January. Maybe you can come back next Christmas or something. I _promise _I will take you. But don't expect me to let you hokey-pokey."

She pinched my side playfully and relented. There were other parks still open, but really, Bella was a disaster waiting to happen on solid, non-ice-covered ground. The idea of her with death-blades strapped to her feet, trying to not kill herself, while balancing on a slippery surface made my insides spasm. So… I omitted that information and distracted her with Tiffany's.

Her eyes grew huge and she bounced on her tippy-toes as we stood in front of it.

"Now _that _is my idea of a New York tourist attraction," she squealed. "Who needs the Statue of Liberty?" She was practically pressed against the window leaving hand and lip prints on the glass, much to the dismay of the guard at the front. I glared at him subtly while directing Bella away from the window and towards the doors.

"Go in and look around," I said, grabbing her hand.

"Oh God, are you kidding me, Edward? That's okay, I'm content just looking in the windows." She rolled her eyes at me as if it were so absurd that she be allowed in the building in her jeans and Chucks.

"I've never been in either. Go play Holly Golightly and have fun," I winked at her, knowing that would do the trick.

With an excited giggle, she practically skipped through the front doors as the security guard slash door-hop held it open for her with a phony smile on his face. I scowled at him as I passed.

We winded our way through all the displays filled with ridiculously priced home items that I thought no one, regardless of their finances, should be allowed to purchase. When we got to the section that had all the jewellery Bella instantly slowed down, ghosting her fingertips over the surfaces of the long glass display cases as she walked along them.

She stopped for a few minutes, leaning over a display filled with engagement rings. My heart sped up as I watched her closely. The sales lady saw the two of us – despite the fact that I was over twenty feet away, I clearly belonged to her since I couldn't take my eyes off her. My eyes narrowed and I studied her. Sensing a possible contact for a future sale, the lady pounced on poor Bella. Bella shook her head adamantly and blushed, telling her she was just looking. With a pointed look at me, suggesting silently that I come talk to her at a later time, the lady smiled sweetly and walked away.

I shook my head, licked my lips, raking my teeth over my lower one, then slowly carried on, fervently avoiding the area Bella was in. She could look all she wanted to, it wouldn't make an ounce of difference.

The ring was already made.

And for a moment, I was lost in my own thoughts…

When she met back up with me, I brushed her hair off her shoulders, swept my palms down her arms, and then kissed her lightly, whispering that I loved her.

The next place I noticed Bella lingering was a case with earrings in it. She smiled reflectively at the shiny, little baubles with a trace of sadness in her eyes. Her fingers toyed at the chips in her ears as she walked along the cases.

"Hey, stop," I said, gripping her hip and stilling her. "Why don't you stop and look, its okay." My tone was soft and tender. She needed it to be.

"There's no point," she whispered, glancing up at me quickly.

She never took the tiny studs from her ears that were once her mothers. Ever. No exceptions.

"Humour me," I whispered back. "If you were so inclined, which ones do you like the best?"

There were rows and rows of earrings stacked in elevated displays on a platform –everything from hoops and dangly things, to flowers, to simple, elegant studs. Bella smiled at me softly as she walked slowly between the cabinet's, stopping occasionally to look in. I trailed behind her while she browsed. Sometimes she stopped just to snicker secretly with me at something insanely gaudy, but others it was with genuine intrigue.

When she stopped and sighed, tracing her fingertips over the glass at a particular pair, I looked up and nodded at the sales associate who had been monitoring us carefully. Without a word, she opened the case and took out the pair Bella was obviously enamoured with.

The lady explained they were called a Victoria setting – which was a fancy way of saying a four-pointed flower. Four brilliant ovals formed an X, tipped with a shiny drop of platinum at the end of each "petal" and one in the centre. They were quietly stunning. I already knew I was going to be buying them.

As Bella chatted with the lady, nodding as if she was genuinely interested in the history behind the name of the classic setting, I picked up the other earring and rolled it around in my fingers. I discretely held it up toward Bella's ear when she wasn't looking, not touching her, just gauging the way it looked.

When their conversation paused for a moment, I budged in. "These are a little big for her little ears, don't you think?" I asked the sales lady, ignoring Bella's looks from beside me. "Do you have the same earring in a smaller setting?"

The lady agreed with me, telling me that was the largest size and that they came in four varieties. She quickly excused herself to retrieve the other earrings to demonstrate.

"Edward," Bella spat at me once she was out of earshot. "I can't…"

"Shh…I know," I whispered, kissing her ear gently and then winking at her.

The lady returned with the other earrings. The one size smaller looked much more appropriate on Bella's dainty ears. As much as I teased Bella about having Dumbo ears, they were just big on _her. _They were tiny by a standard scale.

With a gleam in my eye and a nearly indiscernible nod that the sales associate was trained to recognise instantly, I slid my fingers through Bella's and pulled her away. "We'll be right back," I said quietly to the lady, who had already begun wiping down the earrings with a black cloth, preparing them ready to be wrapped.

"Edward?" Bella whispered, tears welling up in her eyes.

In a semi-private corner of the store I drew her in for a tight hug. I held her close and whispered little things in her ear. I told her it would be okay and that I loved her. When she pulled back gently, sniffling and wiping her nose, she peered up at me with confused eyes.

"What if…" I began, pausing to wipe a few stray tears off her cheeks and kiss the corner of her mouth. "What if we get these and then go somewhere and get a second piercing in your ears?" I asked gently, knowing it had been well over a decade since Renée's earrings had been in her ears.

"I don't understand," she whispered, sniffing again and blinking rapidly.

"Well, what if I want to buy you these for Valentine's Day? Or what if sometime down the road you want to wear something fancier out to dinner or…something? Why don't you get another hole in your ears and move your moms earrings to the new place, so you can where something else occasionally?" I was very careful not to insinuate the action of pushing back her mother's diamonds would be symbolic in any way, artfully constructing my sentence so as to not upset her any further.

She swallowed audibly and looked into my eyes pensively. "I could do that," she whispered. "But I wouldn't be able to change the earrings today. So I won't be able to wear the new ones for Valentine's anyways."

"That's okay, baby," I said, leading her back to the sales counter. "You can wear them next year."

I leaned down to press a gentle kiss against her temple. The earrings were already all polished and packaged. Without further exchange, I handed over my credit card, shaking my head at the lady when she opened her mouth to confirm the price. Bella would have an aneurism. I was more than happy to treat her occasionally, and didn't need her to complain about it.

Before we left, the lady told us there was a salon next door that did ear piercings – conveniently located to profit off of people like us. That was where we were headed. With her pretty, little purchase dangling from her fingertips, we happily exited the building. The crisp, cleansing air met us welcomingly. I winked cockily at the guard as we moved past him and directed Bella next door with my hand at the small of her back.

She was nervous. She sat in a high bar stool, legs kicking like a little kid as the girl who was younger than us set up her station. Admittedly, I was a little nervous for her. I had no idea how much that shit hurt, but I knew Bella loathed needles, blood, and all things that combined medicine with biology. It was ironic for someone who ended up in the ER more times than I could keep track of – or perhaps it was because of it.

She squirmed uncomfortably in her stool while the girl placed little blue dots on her ears. She held a mirror to Bella's face and asked her what she thought of the placement. Without even looking in the mirror she turned to me.

"What do you think?" she asked, chewing viciously on her lower lip.

She held her hair back behind her ears and I ducked my head down to be level with hers so I could get a good look. I shrugged and nodded. They looked fine to me, even and all that.

"Okay, there's going to be a loud popping noise, that's normal, try not to flinch," the girl explained and held the plastic gun-contraption up to Bella's ear. I let her hold my hand so she could squeeze the fuck out of it, but I had to look away.

The snapping noise was loud and I spun my head quickly back to Bella. Her eyes were squeezed shut but they quickly opened. "Oh that wasn't so bad," she said with a little strain in her tone, but also kind of giggling. "I was so young when I got the first piercing I couldn't remember, but that barely hurt."

I smiled at her, relieved and the girl attacked her other side. Bella squeeze my hand once when the gun went off, then was fine again. After we were handed some solution and had the cleaning procedures explained, we left to continue on about our day.

Outside again, the sky was turning a mixture of grey and pink as the sun threatened to set and end our fun. I hailed a cab quickly and shoved Bella in without further explanation.

When we were safely making our way down the streets in heavy traffic toward our destination, I turned to Bella and ghosted my finger over her new ear decorations. "Since when do you prefer pink?" I asked, looking at the tiny baby pink stud against her bright red skin.

"It's for February," she shrugged.

"Oh." I kissed her cheek.

"So where are we headed next?" she asked.

On the car ride over I explained all about the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. I told her how my mother had dragged us to them a few summers back when the entire family came for a visit. We both paused, silently reflective at the memory of the lonely summer following the one where we damaged everything by being idiotic kids, and smiled at each other.

I told her how beautiful it ended up being and how grateful we all were that mom insisted on us going. The entire time I was there I had been thinking of Bella and wishing I had the balls to call her and tell her how much she meant to me and what a senseless moron I was. I wanted to share very detail of the beautiful gardens with her, knowing that while she generally loathed the deep outdoors, gorgeous cherry blossoms and intricate little bridges over lakes with lily pads and frogs was the kind of outdoors she would appreciate.

Of course, the cherry blossoms had yet to bloom and it was much colder out than it had been in July, but it was still gorgeous. Bella loved the kiddie area where you could plant your own flowers. Since we were the only ones there, the woman let us play in the dirt and plant several sprouts before we grew bored and our fingers became frozen. Covered in soil with muddy knees, we walked until we came to the stairs that led to the gift shop and botany educational building. Opting out of the boring learning centre, we grabbed two glasses of wine from the café and sat at on a wooden bench against the edge of the walkway. It overlooked the entire gardens below us and was truly breathtaking. Bella curled into me and we sat and looked out on the gardens in silence as the sun descended below the horizon making the sky a fiery pink.

"Hey, how are your ears? Do they hurt much?" I asked, dipping my head down to examine them for myself. I brushed my lips against the skin just below them. Despite the cold outside, her earlobe swept across my cheek as I kissed her and I could feel how hot the skin was.

"No, they don't hurt at all," she whispered. "Everything is absolutely perfect."

The gardens closed shortly after, so we made our way back to the apartment to drop our things off and change, venturing back out for some dinner. Before we even got to the front door of my apartment I recognised the faint rumble in the hallway.

"Ready to meet the guys?" I asked as I turned the key in the lock.

No sooner had we opened the door than they both threw their arms up in the air, hands clutching X-Box controllers, and yelled, "Bellllllla," at the top of their lungs. The empty beer bottles scattered around the couch explained their enthusiasm.

Bella blushed crimson and smiled sweetly with a small wave to the guys. They both jumped up and engulfed her in a hug, winking at me over her shoulder. Before they had a chance to embarrass Bella or themselves with an inappropriate joke or twelve, I pulled her back and made the formal introductions. Bella asked if they wanted to come find something to eat with us and they agreed eagerly like sloppy, drunken fools, suggesting "downstairs" as a location.

I explained that "downstairs" really meant downstairs and three blocks east where our usual pub hangout was. However, I grimaced at the guys shaking my head 'no', not wanting to take Bella to some stupid dive bar that barely served anything resembling food.

Of course, the more I described how horrible it was and that it was just good for its Happy Hour beers, the more excited Bella grew. She insisted that was where we were going. I went into the bedroom to drop of the bags, change my shoes and jeans and grab Bella's nicer jacket.

When I went back out into the living room, Bella had all the beer bottles lined up in two rows and all three of them were doubled over with laughter. I halted in front of them and raised an eyebrow at the scene.

Bella explained that she had nicknamed them "drunk" and "drunker" and that they were currently arguing over which guy deserved which title. Bella had the beer bottles lined up to illustrate that they were equal in numbers and thus they were both deserving of the "drunker" title. And so they now debated over who was "drunker one" and "drunker two". I just shook my head and laughed – they were both clearly "drunker".

_This should make for an interesting night, _I thought as I slipped Bella's jacket on her. Both the guys made mock-touched faces and aww'd while I pressed my foot into their asses and shoved them out the front door one right after the other.

It was a Friday night, two hours past happy hour and the bar was crammed to the gills. We wedged our way through the doors and up to the bar. Beers were ordered and we stood and joked with each other for a while before I realised we hadn't had anything to eat. I leaned over the bar and called to the girl with the black apron tied around her waist. She came immediately and greeted me with an awkward half hug over the top of the sticky counter. My eyes slid over to Bella as the waitress called me by name, worried that she would be jealous or upset. She rolled her eyes at me dramatically. We were solid. Relieved, I ordered a round of burgers and asked if she could throw a huge pile of fries on a plate and send them out right away because we were all fucking starving. She winked at me and yelled back into the kitchen.

Pushing my way back through the crowd to Bella and the guys, I noticed that a group of girls were stumbling away from one of the high top tables at the back of the room. I nodded toward it to the guys and they shoved their way over to claim it before anyone else could. I wrapped my arms around Bella's waist, wiggling my way in between her legs, as she leaned up against the bar. Once I was shamelessly smashed against her, I reached over her shoulder, hammered back the rest of my beer, and then smothered her face with kisses. She giggled and writhed against me, her fingers winding into the hair at the nape of my neck. She tugged and tried to get closer. I sucked at her lower lip, drawing it into my mouth roughly and slipping my tongue between her lips. My hands squeezed at her hips, pulling her centre closer to mine. Bella's head tilted to the side, inviting me to continue my kisses down her neck. I happily obliged, licking and nipping until I met with her collar bone. I nudged the hem of her shirt out of the way and swept my tongue along the length of it. I made sure to keep a tight grip on her hips in case her legs buckled with pleasure, which happened quite frequently when I unleashed that way on her.

A plate of fries scooted down the bar toward us, and, without lifting my lips from Bella's sweet skin, I looked up as the waitress snickered and walked away. I figured she assumed the woman beneath me was Bella, given that me and my roommates came there several times a week and I had poured my sloppily drunken heart out to the poor girl about Bella on more than one embarrassing occasion.

I stood up, grabbed the fries and the two beers behind Bella – hers and my new one – and leaned down to pull a fry into my mouth with my tongue.

"Ow, fuck, ow, ow!" I swallowed quickly and grimaced. They were fresh out of the fryer. Bella laughed at me as she made her way to the table where the guys were. Behind me, the waitress was also laughing. I rolled my eyes at both of them and followed Bella, staring at her ass appreciatively as she sidestepped the crowd.

I sat the fries down and helped Bella into a barstool, thoroughly ignoring the relentless pursuit from my incredibly inebriated roommates as they sweet-talk-slurred to the girls that had been vacating the table earlier. I sat next to Bella, sliding my hand over her knee and running it up to the juncture of her hip, where I settled it. We shared the plate of fries and giggled, narrating our own version of the sloppy display of male seduction before us. My poor buddies tried every cheesy line in the book while complimenting the women profusely on their hair and outfits. I was second-hand embarrassed for them.

_Thank fuck I don't ever have to experience that shit. _

The waitress brought over our burgers, as well as a pitcher and a stack of chilled mugs, explaining with a smile that it was on the house since we missed happy hour. It was just the kind of shit they did for us given we spent so much time and money there. Well…more the shoddy idiots in front of me than me, but I joined them often enough on the weekends when there was nothing else to do…which admittedly was almost always.

We wolfed back our burgers with the loud music thumping in our ears and vibrating through our bodies. I watched in fascination as Bella slipped the remainder of her burger through her lips, licking her fingers and patting her tummy happily. Her lips encircled her fingers covered in grease and the creamy who-the-fuck-knows-what sauce that was always on the burgers, licking them clean.

We needed to get the home immediately. My brows knit together and my eyes narrowed on her, still focused on her lips as her tongue cleaned them thoroughly. Her laughter broke me from my half-drunk haze and I looked up to see her amused eyes watching my reactions.

"So predictable," she muttered, shaking her head. I couldn't hear her over the noise, but I knew what she said.

I stared at her and she stared back. We looked at each other for what felt like an eternity. It was playful, feisty, and full of promise – until she tilted her head to the side arrogantly, silently challenging me.

I shoved my stool out, climbed down and sauntered toward her with a predatory stare. She sank back against the table a bit her lip. I wrapped my fingers around her mug, pulled it out of her hand and sat it on the table behind her. The shudder that rocked through her didn't escape my notice. I pulled back to look at her, inches from her face, my breath washing over hers. My eyelids were heavy and hooded and I slowly licked my lips, staring straight into her dark eyes. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, faster the longer I stared at her without doing or saying anything.

I slowly ducked down to place my lips at her ear, but before I touched her I made a point to let a breathy moan slip through my lips. I pressed the very tip of my tongue against the still-hot skin at her earlobe, gently running it from the earrings, along the shell of her ear, and to the top, where I drew her into my mouth softly. The tips of her ears were cold in contrast to the warm, freshly pierced lobes, and I knew she could feel the wet heat of my mouth as it wrapped around her. I sucked then pulled back, my teeth digging in and scraping as I released her.

I rocked back onto my heels to look at her. Her hands were bracing herself on my hips, her shoulders slumped forward as she panted. Her eyes were just barely open and they screamed of both desire and resignation.

_That _was predictable.

I dug into my back pocket, pulled out my wallet and grabbed some bills randomly, trying to focus on the numbers through the lust and barley induced haze. I threw down a handful of money and secured it under the edge of the empty pitcher. I made eye-contact with one of my buddies over the girl he was sucking face with's shoulder and nodded at the bills so he would know they were there. He nodded back without breaking away. I turned back to Bella, slipped my wallet back into place and took her hand.

"We need to get the fuck out of here…now."

* * *

Wait. What did he say in the middle there?

I' sure you have forgotten all about that by now.

*runs away*

I love you.

Air

xox


	23. Taste Caramel

I know. I'm sorry.

Thank you to the girls at Project Team Beta for hosting the Smut University which I had the dinstinct pleasure of guest lecturing at last Saturday. You guys are all kinds of pervy-amazingness and I cant thank you enough. If you haven't joined their forums you need to right away.

*whispers*

The SU students got a tasty little "present-day" teaser for participating. So see...you should have been there.

Also, I have been whining non-stop to anyone who will listen about a serious fear I have about this story, so now I am going to whine to you pretty people.

*wonders if anyone even reads these author notes or if you pervs just grab your vamp and netbook and lock youself in your bedrooms*

GIGGLE

I'm worried about the sex being too much. I know...but seriously. Like, I don't want it to be the central part of this story. If it ever feels like it is overshadowing the LOVE please don't hesitate to PM me and tell me I'm a perverted h00r that just thinks its fun to do dirty things to Robward...I promise, I won't even try and dispute that. lol

*end rant*

kthxbai

xox

* * *

I had her tiny hand inside mine as I pulled her through the crowd. I wrapped my fingers around hers and held on tight, feeling the electricity that buzzed in our palms and grew until it seeped through our veins and carried through our entire bodies. The music pulsed and hummed, vibrating inside us and resonating in places that really didn't need any further encouragement. The entire day had been an exercise in restraint – something I had never been all that good at. But now it was late, dark, the music was overtly sexual, _Bella _was being overtly sexual, we had more beers than we could keep track of…and I needed her. The quick shuffle of her feet behind me and the excited giggles each time she tripped or stumbled as we fought our way through the crowd said that she was just as ready to consume me as I was her.

As we broke through the heavy door and the crisp winter New York air hit us, we breathed a sigh of relief, knowing release was on its way. We climbed up the concrete stairs making our way back to street level. As I led her up, she stumbled behind me, clutching to the back of my jacket and around my waist to right herself. I laughed at her predictable clumsiness. Reaching behind me, I grabbed both of her wrists and pulled her over my hips and up my back. She wrapped her legs tight around my waist, and secured her arms at my neck. I snaked my arm back and cupped her ass, skipping and hopping my way down the sidewalk with her on my back. She held on tight and giggled drunkenly in my ear.

To be honest, I was way to drunk to be taking such liberties. I was having a hard time staying upright by myself before I threw her on my back. As I made my way down the sidewalk I pinched her ass playfully just as I reached the foot of the stairs leading up to my building. Bella leaned in and licked my neck, trailing sloppy, fucking wet and delicious kisses up to my ear. I was almost to the top of the stair when she sucked my earlobe into her hot little mouth and breathed heavily into my ear. My knees wobbled with the mixed types of overwhelming intoxication. My hands slipped from supporting her weight underneath her and she slid down my back.

We both tried to correct the hold we had on each other. Her hand grabbed at my collar, while mine tried to regain their hold on her ass but ended up hitching underneath one thigh while the other slid all the way down my leg. I lost my footing and met with the stairs. Bella's hands reached out over my shoulders and braced herself over the top of me as we fell. I landed on one shoulder, my other hand gratefully thinking faster than my horny, drunkenly sluggish brain and saved my face from slamming into the concrete.

When it was evident that we survived the slight tumble, Bella began writhing with giggles sprawled out on top of my back. Her little body shook and vibrated against mine. I rubbed the edge of my cheekbone that had been the only place unfortunate enough to make contact with the steps.

"Oh you think that's funny?" I growled over my shoulder at her. She answered with more shaking fits of laughter.

Twisting my body beneath hers while holding tightly onto her hips to keep her in place above me. I lay back against the wet, painful, concrete stairs, my head lolled back against the hard surface, and my eyes closed.

"Aww, baby," she cooed at me, still clearly choking back giggles. She traced her little fingertips over the top of my cheekbone and I hissed as she touched the sensitive scrape mark. I felt her lips and warm tongue on my cheek, kissing my wound. "I'm sorry, Edward."

She continued her kisses over my cheek, down the straight edge of my nose, around the corners of my lips, and to my chin. Her cold fingers found their way under the hem of my jacket and shirt and slid underneath. Her fingers were freezing in comparison to my hot chest and we both hummed and hissed at the contact. She climbed up me, settling higher up on my thighs, her hips wrapping around mine while I continued to be pushed against the painfully hard stairs, barely noticing the sharp lines of pain running horizontally along my spine. I was focused only on the combination of hot and cold, of heaven and hell, of need and want.

I opened my eyes with a sense of urgency that I felt deep inside me – though in reality my eyelids moved heavily and slowly. It seemed to take forever before I could focus on the face so close to mine. When I did she stole my breath. She continued her soft parade of kisses along my jaw, while her hands, warming against my skin, moved against my ribcage and tickled down my sides. She pushed her hands underneath me and hugged me tight against her as she continued kissing me.

Clearly, I was more drunk than I realised, because all I could focus on was the sensation of her fingers under my shirt and her hot lips under my chin. Her hips ground against me and the moan that slipped through my slackened lips would have been embarrassing under any other circumstances. I sounded incredibly desperate and vulnerable – which I was. And every touch Bella lay on my body felt fucking amazing.

Somewhere in the swirl of sensation and blurred images that rocked back and forth in my mind, I realised I should be less selfish and pay more attention to Bella's needs. Instead, I lay there allowing her to work me over while I did nothing but consume her touches and moan and hiss.

With heavy hands I reached up and secured them on her hips. I gripped her firmly to keep my palms from slipping back down, and in so doing, I ground her deeper into me. She groaned out my name in my ear and her tongue swirled around its edge. A few profanities left my mouth and I found a nice, if not slightly rough, rhythm to work her hips against mine with. Her fingers got tangled in my hair and she pulled, lifting my lazy head up off the stair. Our eyes met and locked on each other's. Her hunger and need seemed to mirror mine and my hands pushed up her jacket and shirt and met with her back, squeezing and wanting. She continued the rhythm against me as I clung to her, still keeping her gaze.

A drop of rain slid down her forehead and over her nose. It dangled from the tip and landed against my upper lip. It rolled over to my bottom lip then settled against my tongue. Somehow, in my drunken and highly aroused state, it was one of the most intimate and erotic things I had ever experienced. I licked my lips and found my strength. I held her to me as I climbed up to a standing position. She whimpered as her body briefly lost contact with mine. Her little, frantic hands grabbed and clutched at all the skin and fabric she could land her fingers on, trying to reclaim her position glued to me. I was all too happy to allow it. I lifted her up to me, our chests pressed against one another and leaned her against the railing at the head of the stairs, having finally made my way to the top.

My dick was hard and strained against my jeans, clawing at the seams with a prayer of freedom dancing through its head, pleading for warmth and comfort and home. I ground it against her spread legs where she was smashed between me and the railing. Her head fell back and she cried out with a shudder, locking her thighs around my hips and trying to pull me closer with her feet digging into my ass.

I opened my eyes and couldn't resist the allure of her long, creamy neck stretched out in front of me as her head relaxed against her far shoulder. Her poor lower lip was being devoured by her teeth. My lips hungrily met with the soft, warm skin, peppered with drops of water as the rain picked up. I licked the rain from her skin and slid my hands under her shirt. Her knees tightened against my hips, holding her in place, and a string of heavy breaths mixed with my name left her mouth.

Bella saying my name as she lost herself in the clutches of pleasure was by far the most delicious thing my ears had ever heard. I pushed her bra out of my way and my thumbs rubbed greedily against both of her nipples as they rose to meet me. The skin tightened and her body shuddered. I found her mouth again and pulled her to me. What I really wanted to do was cram my head under her jacket so I could pull her nipples into my mouth and consume them, but I was going to have to be satisfied with what I had for the moment. I would have my way with them later.

"Oh god, Edward. Oh…" she breathed into my mouth as I swallowed back her moans, sliding my tongue between her lips.

I was instantly more alert than I had been – the fog of hops being replaced by the rush of passion. I knew every hidden secret behind the different type of Bella's moans, and both my dick and my ego propelled me forward. I was wholly oblivious to the fact that we hadn't even made it into the building yet, let alone to the privacy of my apartment.

Keeping Bella's little body balancing on the edge of the railing, I held her firmly with one arm around her back, the other hand still kneading her breast. I pinched her nipple between my forefinger and middle and I ducked down to where her stomach was exposed. Pushing her clothing up higher, I kissed the sweet skin of her ribcage, inhaling her delicious scent. The mix of sugar and coconut and Bella was so familiar it could make me feel at home in any environment.

I nipped at the skin around her belly button as she continued to squirm and writhe. My teeth grazed her skin and chills rippled across her abdomen. Her fingers yanked at my hair forcefully. I hedged her clothing up even higher with my head as I worked her over, making sure to keep her jacket just below where my hand cupped the soft weight of her breast so I wouldn't expose her inappropriately.

As my thumb made one more circle around her nipple and my tongue dipped into her little navel, her body tightened beneath me and panted out a string of beautiful cries. My resounding smile that stretched against her skin as I continued to lick and kiss – softer, and more slowly – could have lit up the dark night. Her fingers loosened in my hair and I stood, righting her clothing and wrapping my arms behind her back to hold her tighter to me. She shook gently as she slowly soared back to me.

With eyes drenched in satisfied arrogance I stood and arched an eyebrow at her, a smug smile on my face. I knew she both loved and hated the cocky look I was giving her. It said "I love you" and "I own you". She knew both were true.

"Holy shit," she mouthed quietly. My twinkling eyes bore into hers and I tried to read the soul that was behind them. I wanted to see the colours and textures as they floated behind her dark eyes, lighting them from the inside and shining through to where I stood before her, happy…though not quite sated myself. "Can we go inside now?" Her voice was weak with orgasm and breathy against my face. I smiled eagerly at her, nodding.

_I kinda figured she owed me._

Her hand slipped inside my front pants pocket to retrieve the house keys. Her little fingers rooted around unnecessarily, wrapping around more than just the keys. She giggled as I glared at her, fighting a smirk that would have negated the firmness of my scowl. She winked at me, palming my dick once more through my pocket as she slid her hand out and displayed the keys in front of my face. She jingled them obnoxiously.

"Somehow… I think you should be a little less of a jerk and a little more grateful, no?" I joked as I snatched the key from her fingers and turned to the front door, letting her fall rather roughly to her own feet as I pulled away from the railing.

She huffed behind me as I fiddled with the locks. I opened the door, extending it forward with my arm outstretched, allowing her to pass through first and get out of the rain. She ducked beneath my arm, her eyes laughing at me as she passed by. Her fingers trailed slowly against my stomach.

I followed her up the stairs, happily noticing the two wet patches against the ass cheeks of her jeans from where she sat on the wet railing. I licked my lips and reached for them as she climbed the steps faster than me. My fingers fell short of making any contact, which was far more depressing than it should have been. I knew in mere moments I would have the contact I craved. But as was always the case with Bella and me, every second that we weren't touching was fucking agony.

We reached my door and she shuffled to the side silently, allowing me to open it for us. As I worked the key in the locks she wrapped her arms around my stomach, pressing her chest against my back. She balanced on her tiptoes so she could reach my ear. "I am very grateful of your many talents, Edward," she breathed before enveloping my ear into her mouth for a warm, wet kiss that hummed through me and settled in my pants. I swallowed thickly and kicked the stubborn fucking door that wouldn't allow the last lock to turn properly. The deadbolt had always been a pain-in-the ass, but now it was being a cock-blocking-pain-in-the-ass and I was going to rip it from the wall the second we got into the apartment if it didn't relent soon.

Just as Bella giggled into my ear at my obvious frustration, the key advanced enough to turn the tumbler and the door finally heaved open. I glared at the fucking deadbolt as I passed through.

No sooner was the door closed and locked than Bella was pressed roughly against it. She gasped and whined as her back hit the hard wood, but then melted into me and moaned as my fingers found her zipper and tore at it. I shoved the wet denim down as far as I could reach then moved to her jacket, which she was already unfastening and tearing from her body. Our hands and fingers met in a hasty, tangled mess of desperation, effectively ending all…effectiveness. We snarled and moved to our own clothing, ripping it from our bodies as quickly as humanly possible while smirking at one another.

I silently vowed that at some point over the Valentine's trip I would make love to Bella nicely. I would hold her and love her gently, the way she deserved. Thus far, every time I had touched her since her arrival had been heated, rough, and urgent.

Clearly, the slow lovemaking was not going to happen that particular time around as I gave up and shredded the last few buttons of my shirt away, hearing them click somewhere at my feet. Bella gasped and then laughed and pounced on me. I still had my jeans on, she still had her bra secured and her jeans were in a mess around her ankles, but there was enough skin to satisfy the need momentarily.

I scooped her up into my arms and practically fucking ran to the bedroom, tripping over the purse she had heaved into the room moments before. We tumbled onto the bed in the pitch dark room and finished the task of stripping each other bare. Her skin shimmered against the yellow streetlight that streamed in through my window as I stood at the edge of the bed, yanking off both of our shoes and kicking away wet piles of denim.

Naked, I felt a little calmer, knowing release was literally spread out before me. I took a moment to breathe and absorb how beautiful Bella looked laying on my bed, her porcelain skin stark against the dark comforter. I had imagined her in my room and on my bed, usually naked, more times than I could recount, wanting desperately to merge my two lives into one happy cohesive jumble of school, cities, and love. And there she was. Her lower lip its usual prisoner and her fingertips gliding idly along her ribs and over the swell of her breasts as she waited for me. Her middle finger circled her nipple and it tightened under her touch – a dusty shadow on her skin that was wrapped in the blanket of dark around us. She hummed against the sensation with her eyes on mine.

I wrapped my long fingers around her ankles and pulled her closer until her ass balanced on the edge of the bed. I was sure she expected me to plunge right in; it was no secret that I was more than ready. Her eyes squeezed shut as she waited for my entry. When it didn't happen she opened them slowly and let out all the air she had been holding onto.

My eyes felt dark and desperate, but I wanted to prolong the release, teasing and torturing both of us like the masochist I sometimes was. I lowered her ankles, dropping them so that her relaxed legs spilled over the edge of the bed. I ran my fingertips down her thigh, over her knee, and down her calves as I lowered myself to my knees. Just before I brought my mouth to her I looked up and saw her head flop back onto the bed with a slightly drunk smile on her lips. I licked mine and proceeded.

Slowly, ran my nose along the inside of one thigh while my hand gripped the other, pushing her open wider. With hot breath bathing over her, I slowly placed my tongue on her. I ran it lightly over the folds of skin, almost a ghost of a movement, barely enough to register with her, just enough to cause her to whine and wiggle beneath me. She tried to lift herself up to her elbows but I pushed her back without looking up, a firm hand flat against her stomach. She whined louder.

Bella's little fingers slid over my head and twisted into my hair. I expected to feel her tug or push, driving me deeper into her to demand I stop fucking with her. I continued to lick her lightly, just barely swirling my tongue around the sensitive knot of nerves where she wanted me the most. It caught me off guard when she dragged her fingertips lightly over my scalp and then circled them around the tip of my ear, curling her fingers around it gently before letting her hand fall limp at her side. Somehow the small action seemed intensely intimate, even more so than my tongue lapping her most private area. Something warm hummed through me. It had less to do with arousal and more to do with love.

I continued, swallowing back the sweet moisture from her previous orgasm greedily, growing harder by the second as I tasted her in my mouth. I dragged my tongue through her and then quickly sucked on two of my fingers before slipping them inside. I lowered my head and sucked, scraping my teeth gently against the flesh as my fingers curled. She bucked and moaned and panted out my name along with a few other choice words.

She began tightening around me – not quite there but almost. The sharp, twisting sensations were beginning to build low in her belly and writhe through her body preparing to pull her under the tide and claim her. Her hips began to move of their own accord while her little fists dug into the fabric beneath her. Her panting noises turned more feral and her head shoved deep into my mattress.

She clenched a little tighter. My fingers pumped and curled.

"You almost there, baby?" I whispered through a thick voice. Then I flattened my tongue against her and pressed, pulling my fingers out slowly then pushing them back in, running against her top wall, feeling the rough patch that when I touched it made her scream loudly, much to my pleasure.

_Almost there._

"Yes, oh, god, almost, yes…" she was all breath and no sound, yet I was watching her face intently so I understood what she couldn't find the strength to verbalize. She was about to cum.

"Good," I said in a firm voice. I pulled my fingers abruptly from her and stood, walking across the room leaving her behind.

"Wha…uh?" She groaned and lifted her head to locate me in the blackness. I watched her as I fiddled with my iPod dock, selecting something to quietly fill the room. Once her eyes settled on me she whined loudly and scolded me. "That's just cruel." She actually sounded like she was in pain. I almost felt bad. But then I remembered the way she enjoyed bossing me around the night before, instructing me to look but not touch when she knew it was all I wanted to do.

_Almost felt bad. _

I laughed out loud and crawled across the bed to join her, a huge smile on my face.

"You're horrible!" she whisper-yelled at me as I climbed up her body, my face hovering right over hers. I could feel her shaking with unsatisfied need beneath me.

"Horribly fucking talented," I corrected as I beamed down at her, still pretty impressed with myself for getting her off outside with simple kisses and caresses.

"No!" Her head was shaking from side to side adamantly. "No, just plain ole horrible."

"Aw, now my feelings are hurt," I joked, lowering a hand to wrap around my swelling cock.

I teased her entrance without breaking her gaze. Fire leapt through my veins as I swept myself back and forth through her. It screamed through me, igniting the tips of my fingers, toes, and scalp. It made my heart pound against my chest, beating a speedy but steady rhythm onto Bella's as it pressed against her. I had my weight braced with my other hand and Bella turned to my wrist that was right next to her and kissed it – slow, wet, sensual right at the junction of all my veins. She brushed her lips back and forth and it was all velvet sensation on thin sensitive skin as other hot ripples of pleasure moved through me from my own ministrations.

I gave up teasing her and dove in just as she bit the skin at her lips and tugged at it. The combination of so fucking warm and sweet and good mixed with the sharp, pin-prick of pain at my wrist and swirled through me. My eyes widened at her and my teeth clenched. The last thing I saw before my head smashed down onto her shoulder and I cried out was her pretty, bashful smile as she released my wrist.

Six years of making love with Bella and she still found ways to fucking own me. She was brilliant and delicious and a goddess and fucking…mine. She never ceased to amaze me.

I forced myself to lift my head when in all honestly, all I wanted to do was collapse on top of her and crawl inside and make myself at home. I peered down at her, her dark eyes flashing mischievously at me. I pulled out slowly, watching her expression as I removed myself from her. Her features fell at the brief ache of absence. I knew the ache well. The feeling of loss. It had to have been even more amplified for Bella by the actual, physical hole left in my retreating wake. I filled her again. Then retreated.

As I slid in and out, I watched her face just inches from mine. Every time I pushed into her, touching her deep inside herself, her jaw slackened and her eyes rolled back in her head. Every time I withdrew she winced and her eyes twitched with the agony of loss. I continued to move slowly and deliberately, getting off at watching her just as much as by the sensation of her warm wetness wrapping around me and gripping me.

After several minutes of slow, painfully delicious passages through her, Bella glared at me as the tip of my cock began pushing slowly back into her. She closed her legs, her knees pinching at my hips and stopping me, her eyes flashing a deep, dark anger. It ignited things inside me. I raised a brow at her, wondering what she was doing – excited to find out.

"Fuck you Cullen," she shoved me with her knees and wriggled herself up onto her elbows. After pushing me away from her with her little bare feet on my hips, she sat, placed her palms on my chest and heaved me to the end of the bed.

I leaned back and smirked at her. She always used that nickname when we were little kids. She picked it up from the boys I used to hang out with. I was always "Cullen" and Em was "big Cullen", but Bella only used it when she was upset with me. I stifled a laugh at her faux-feistiness.

I smiled so wide my eyes were crinkled slits I could barely see out of as Bella crawled across the bed. I opened my mouth to say something, but the incredibly sexy sight of her naked and creeping toward me with a heated look on her face stole the thought from my mind. I was left with my mouth agape, eyes narrowed, running my tongue slowly over my teeth as I waited for her.

She settled herself over my hips in a crouch, balancing on the balls of her feet with her fingertips poking roughly into the muscle of my thighs. "You should really wipe that stupid grin off your face," she purred out a warning to me. My dick tightened and reached for her. She hovered above me just out of reach. My hips rose off the mattress trying to find the heat I longed for, but she pressed her fingertips into me to hold me in place. I could have taken her…instead I laid my head back with a huff and growled out my frustration. "That's better." Her finger swiped across my closed lips.

I bit it.

"Dammit," she muttered as my teeth sunk in. I didn't open my eyes; I was having too much fun. "I need you."

"You had me." Eyes still closed, smirking.

"No. I need you to really fuck me. Make me scream."

_Jesus fucking Christ…_

That had my attention. My eyes snapped open and found hers. I was panting at her words, the air coming and going quickly through my nose as I bit the inside of my cheek trying to contain myself. Bella rarely spoke like that. I liked it.

"I was," I finally growled at her.

"No…you were fucking _with _me," she hissed back, her eyes glittering in the pale glow of the room, they were friendly as she toyed with me.

"It felt good," I purred in my most velvety voice. "And you know it."

"You always feel good," she whispered her admission quietly, yet reverently. I felt it in my fucking bones. I _did _always feel good inside her, and not just from her perspective.

"I can feel better," I promised through clenched teeth, a pointed stare asking her to let me try.

She braced herself on my shoulders, her eyes on mine. I wet my lips, a smile raising the corner of my mouth, the anticipation swarming through me. She lowered herself onto me slowly, just the tip of my dick entering her before she pushing back up off the balls of her feet, teasing both of us. Over and over she followed that motion until the throbbing swell inside my dick and gut threatened to spill over whether she sunk all the way onto me or not.

Her breaths were shaky and uneven, her eyes closed. I smoothed my palms against the tops of her thighs as the shuddered under their fatigue. I rubbed and pulled until she relented, sinking onto me fully.

Wrapped up in Bella always made my mind hum. It made my senses fog over so that the only thing I knew was that she felt amazing and that I loved her so fucking much I could cry. Making love to Bella, even if it was needy and teasing, even if it toyed with us both until we fell of the brink of insanity was always an act of beauty.

"I love you," I slurred through lips that were heavy with emotion and not drink, having burned that off long ago.

She didn't respond, her fingernails digging into the skin just below my navel as she rode the shit out of me. I was going to come quickly but so was she. But before she did I wanted to hear her say it back.

I pushed myself up off my back, interrupting her euphoric trance and grabbing her attention. I cradled her ass in my palms and backed off the edge of the bed, ignoring her dissatisfied whimpers.

Taking the three steps it took to set her ass on the edge of the window sill, I carried her with me and sandwiched her between myself and the edge of the window. Sliding my hands along the sensitive underside of her thighs, I brought my hands out from under her ass and anchored them behind her knees, opening her legs wide enough for me.

I pressed against her and took her face roughly into my hands. I forced her hooded, tired, desperate eyes to focus on mine. "I said I love you." I had no idea why I was so frantic to hear those fucking words suddenly. But she was going to say them.

She whined – a long and drawn out sound. I had mercy on her and filled her completely. She hissed as her bare back was pushed against the cold glass window, her fingers reached for my hair. I ducked out of her grasp and pulled her face closer to mine, my fingertips hooking under her jaw and tightening.

She panted and her sweet breath was smooth and rich over my lips. My hands fell at my sides. "Edward." It was a whisper that was replaced by a gush of air as I rocked out and back in forcefully, my fingertips finding and kneading the backs of her knees gently. I allowed time for the comfort of the small circles on the sensitive skin to register before I pounded back into her. I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead. I reached up to anchor my hand against her back to alleviate some of the pressure off the ancient window before it cracked and we toppled through it.

"Edward." The word was a little more recognisable, less breathy yet more desperate than the last time she tried to say my name. My eyes were sharp and bit into hers.

In. Out. Pound.

The window rattled.

"Edward," she growled at me loudly, a combination of trying to get me to acknowledge her and the sensation that was rapidly brewing in her for a third time since we entered the apartment. It was warm and splintering. It was domineering, demanding attention this time where it had been denied the previous two.

Her little hands swept up my bare torso, over my nipples. They palmed over my shoulders and this time, I allowed her to tangle her fingers in my hair. Our lips brushed back and forth over one another's because of how close we were, though we were not in any way kissing.

My eyes narrowed on hers but I stayed quiet. I just continued moving inside her, lighting us both on fire.

I was tangled deep inside my own spiralling orgasm, it was about to crest and fall beautifully when her little hand lifted from my hair and pushed me hard in the shoulder. The release slinked off with its tail between its legs and I shook my head to gain some clarity. I found her eyes angry and boring into mine.

"I love you," she sobbed, replacing the hand back around my neck, clinging to me. "I love you so fucking much that it's ruined me. But it's beautiful and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love you, Edward. I love you…" The words choked and her head lowered to my chest.

I lifted her from the window sill and held her to me. With my hands underneath her, supporting our combined weight on legs that seemed too shaky to even hold myself, I lifted her along me. Wet, slippery perfection – tight and all-consuming – I slid her back down, pressing our centres together. It took three passes up and down my shaft to have us both literally screaming in each others ears. Time stopped, the air around us paused, not even the sirens that could always be heard in the distance permeated the bubble of fucking euphoric bliss that danced around us.

When I remembered my name again, and that I was holding a naked goddess still attached to my body in my arms, I blinked and looked to her. She looked equally dazed as her eyes glossed over and she chewed on her bottom lip.

The corner of my lip lifted in a slow but giddy smirk. Her eyes seemed to wake up just a bit and she giggled. The sound was lethargic but it was happy.

"So, in case you didn't get that message clear enough. I love you, Edward," she whispered, leaning in and placing a soft, delicate kiss on the tip of my nose.

"Yeah, I kinda got that," I joked, dropping her gracelessly to her feet, holding her hips until I knew she was steady.

I flopped backward onto the bed naked, groaning out a long "fuuuuck" as I hit the soft mattress and the merry exhaustion crept in. Bella climbed up onto the bed and as tired as I was, I wasn't too spent to not turn my head and watch my naked, freshly sated girlfriend crawling on all fours with a dopey grin on her face. The flickering yellow light from the streetlamp masked the proper colour of her skin, but I knew the beautiful shade of rose her cheeks would be flushed with. I knew it by heart and smiled at it, knowing it was there and finding the usual comfort in my knowledge. I lifted my arm in invitation and she curled herself around me. The last thing I remembered was growling as I tried to pull the blankets free from under us without actually getting up off the bed, and then covering us and floating away into sleep.

My world was perfect.

My world was…cold.

_What the hell?_

I rolled over to where the warm little body _should _be curled next to me, only to find the brisk cool of empty sheets. I blinked rapidly, trying to grab my bearings. It was morning already.

My hand skimmed over the lack of Bella and I actually pouted before sitting up and scanning the room. Her scent was everywhere. Her flowery, sugary sweetness filled my nostrils in humid clouds that rolled out of the open doorway from the bathroom. The light was off, so I assumed she had showered and left already. I used the bathroom, pulled my jeans on from the night before and squinted at the sun as it filtered in through the undressed windows in the living room where I padded out still half-asleep.

Bella was curled up on the floor with scissors, a red sharpie, and some single-wrapped cookies. Her face was all scrunched up in thought and the lid of the marker rested snug between her teeth. One of my roommates sat cross-legged next to her dropping the cookies into a shiny red gift bag.

I squatted behind her, slipped my arms around her waist and buried my nose into her damp hair, kissing her neck until she squealed.

"I find your display of disgustingly cute affection oddly inspiring today," my buddy scoffed, sounding half serious and half ready to hurl. I laughed and plopped myself down next to Bella, fingering the white satin ribbon that sat between them in a little spool waiting to be used.

"And you two are….?" I prompted, my brows knit together wondering what the hell they were doing.

Bella giggled and turned to me. Our noses touched. I swept mine across hers then left a small kiss between her eyes and then leaned back against the couch.

"Apparently we are trying to woo the blonde from last night for lover-boy here," she answered, writing on a cookie wrapper and then handing it to my buddy. He turned to me and shrugged.

"Dude. You're trying to get laid with mini-macaroons? That's like…an all time low," I joked, throwing a cookie at him.

"Or an all-time _cute,_" Bella was quick to correct. I raised an eyebrow high at the idiot next to me. We both knew it was an embarrassing low. I nodded and scrunched my face up at Bella, indicating my over-exaggerated agreement. She just laughed and climbed onto my lap. "You wouldn't try and seduce me with cookies?" She nibbled on my ear and I couldn't stop the small moan that slipped out of my mouth before I realised it.

My poor roommate continued copying mushy romance phrases onto the wax paper wrappings from a sheet of paper covered in Bella's handwriting, before dropping them into the bag, entirely oblivious to us. Except for the small smirk on his lips. But I had been sufficiently tormented by jokes about not getting laid enough, that I knew he was glad I was making up for lost time. If not a little uncomfortable with his proximity to us.

"Bella." I pushed the heavy hair off her shoulders so it would spill down her back, exposing her. I placed an unhurried kiss at her collarbone before righting myself and looking back to her. "I don't think I have _tried_ to seduce you in well over six years."

"Well, isn't that horribly _un_romantic," she scoffed, play-smacking my chest. "It's a wonder why I even stick around." She shoved her arms between us and crossed them huffily over her chest, glaring at me. Her lips fought to stay straight.

"Is it really…" I dipped my head back down to her warm skin. "…a wonder?" I kissed the small bones that collared her neck and then nudged underneath her chin with my forehead, forcing it up. I licked the little dip at the apex of her jaw then sat back up smirking in a way I knew she would feel right between her legs. I puckered up my lips and kissed the air between us. "Besides, I seem to remember something about you loving me. Maybe that's why you keep me around."

Her face brightened and she beamed at me. "I do love you. You arrogant jackass."

And with that her knees shifted so she was no longer simply seated on me, but rather straddling my lap. I unapologetically shoved my tongue down Bella's throat, flipping the bird to my roommate who had begun muttering under his breath. He chucked the Sharpie at my head and stalked off.

After a few minutes of making out like we were sex-starved teenagers as opposed to sometimes-sex-starved-but-currently-incredibly-fucking-satisfied twenty something's, I shoved Bella off my lap. "Okay, get dressed I'm getting in the shower. Lots to do…" I let my voice trail off suggestively. I twirled a chunk of her hair around my finger and tugged it in the direction of the bedroom until she moved when at first she tried to ignore me. I pat the side of her ass and she stood off my lap and offered me a tiny hand to help me off the ground.

Bella sat on the edge of the vanity, her feet swinging in the air as she told me stories and kept me company while I showered, shaved and got dressed. She entertained me with everything from way too many details of how my roommate had managed to become so smitten with the girl from the bar in one night, to a story I surprisingly had never heard before about a time she knocked Charlie off the edge of a dock in her youthful haste to flee from a fish at the end of her own fishing pole one summer.

I was pulling a polo shirt over my head and half-listening to her as she continued to chatter away when her sudden gasp caught my attention. I came around the corner to the bathroom quickly, buttoning my fly as I walked.

"What?"

"I haven't gotten you anything cheesy yet! Crap." She scowled at her own feet as they swung in the air, heels lightly hitting and rattling the cupboard below the sink. Her fingertips gently touched the tops of the little pink rhinestones in her ears.

"Well…I seem to remember we discussed the proper counterpart to diamonds a few months ago," I offered…just trying to be helpful.

She threw the hand towel at my head.

"What?" I ducked. "Just saying…" I flashed her a smirk that said I wasn't kidding half as much as I was pretending to be. Which she naturally answered with a glare that I read as her reminding me that I get quite a bit of head whenever we were together and that I could shove it. I couldn't do anything but laugh at her as I hung the towel back up.

"How about chocolates? Well, I mean, I know how you feel about chocolate, but ya know, the _idea _of chocolates," she suggested sounding hopeful. "That's cheesy and Valentine's Day-ish." She jumped down off the counter and grabbed her coat off a hanger in my closet.

I really liked seeing it there.

"Are you honestly asking me if I would rather have chocolate over a blow job? Because I hate chocolate." The conversation followed us into the living room. I was bent over with my foot on a dining chair lacing up my shoes and finding the entire direction of the conversation hilarious given our plans for the morning.

"No! Blow jobs were never even on the table. Geez." She rolled her eyes at me.

"Blow job_s…_we are talking plural now? Fuck. I love Valentine's weekend." I joked, shoving her lightly with my knee in her ass as she fiddled with her purse at the kitchen counter. She shook her head playfully and walked away.

I ignored the profane things one of my roommates shouted over the loud rock music that blared from inside their bedroom and helped Bella into her jacket. I held the front door open for her and we left the apartment behind for the day.

We grabbed some coffee at the little café just downstairs. Then I hailed us a cab and we were on our way. The parallel to our prior conversation couldn't have been more appropriate if it had been scripted.

The Ayza Chocolate bar was a new concept lounge in Manhattan. It fused together the chic sophistication of a wine bar with the simplicity of an old-fashioned chocolatier. The lobby had an elegant marble counter where they served small, cold tapas along with champagne, wine, and dessert martinis. Golden lighting hung from the ceiling and glistened off the high-gloss concrete floors and pewter barstools covered in red leather. There was a viewing room off to the side of the kitchen where you could watch through the glass as the chocolatier meticulously hand-crafted each tiny piece of candy art. The entire shop was filled with a deliciously sweet aroma that no matter what your personal feelings for the cocoa bean were, made your mouth water.

I recognised the sweet air before I even finished opening the door for Bella, having been there recently. I walked in and greeted a man with a white apron folded in half and tied perfectly around his crisp white outfit. He called me by my first name and Bella was instantly on high-alert. Her wide eyes locked on mine as she silently wondered what I was up to. I winked and guided her through the lobby.

The man in the apron introduced himself in a filtered French accent, mixed with some old-school New York twang, as Jacques. He wiped his already immaculate palm on his apron and offered it to Bella, bending at the waist and kissing her hand, whispering who-the-fuck-knows-what in French. Predictably, Bella flushed, looked away biting at her lip, and muttered a greeting. He winked at me when she wasn't looking.

I came into the shop the week before just looking around, knowing chocolate was a typical Valentine's gift. I was lucky enough to be in the lobby as Jacques was exiting with the shop owner, animatedly discussing the week's chaotic shipment orders over the holiday.

Jacques owned his own, much sought-after, chocolate shop and supplied Ayza with their confections, occasionally teaching the small bistro's chocolatiers a thing or two in their own kitchen. I somehow found myself in conversation with the men about what kind of chocolate they would recommend for a girl who loves to hate it, and who can admittedly only stomach small portions of it, but adores it all the same. Jacques was thrilled with the challenge and we ended up agreeing that the question of _what _he would recommend was going to have to be one that only Bella could answer for herself.

And so it was that he was meeting us at ten AM on a Saturday morning, despite the demand of his own self-made chocolate empire, to hand craft some special chocolates for Bella. With her help of course.

He led us through the lobby and into the kitchen, pouring all of his attention to Bella as he promised her that together they would create a truffle masterpiece that even she would not be able to get enough of. As he tied the apron around her waist, pulling her hair to the side and out of the way of the strings, he entertained her with the story of his hard work and the hilarious events that ended up turning into a career with which he made a name for himself in the city and dare he say even the world.

I tied my own apron and smiled at them as he held Bella's rapt attention. He eventually showed us some of the equipment, explaining each piece's purpose in the process of manufacturing perfect chocolate. We nodded and exchanged looks with one another, clearly not understanding a fucking thing but having fun with the eccentric chocolate-chef all the same. He explained procedures such as tempering and draping, all while dipping spoons into small vats of liquid chocolate and asking our honest opinions of them.

He made small talk with both of us, but focused on Bella. He casually asked what her favourite desert was, knowing it wouldn't be chocolate-based, but feigning tragic offence when she admitted that it was strawberry shortcake. She surprised even me when she added, "Or anything covered in caramel sauce."

_Mental note…_

He asked if she liked champagne and she nodded enthusiastically. He returned with a bottle, snapped the top of with a loud _pop,_ and poured three flutes. Jacques offered a toast to producing a sublime chocolate for an equally divine woman. Bella blushed and I toasted to the fact that we were eating chocolate and drinking champagne at eleven thirty in the morning. She beamed with a guilty smile and I told her that she was on holidays and to enjoy herself. She stole a quick kiss and then returned her attention back to the smooth-speaking French man.

Jacques mixed a few bowls of ingredients and set some things to the side. He settled a steel dish in an ice bath and then spread several layers of different white mixtures along a chilled metal tabletop. He explained the importance of each step as he worked. After another half an hour, he retrieved our aprons from us and shooed us out. He told us to go have a few drinks and some lunch and that he would be out with the final product in an hour.

He bent to kiss each of Bella's cheeks and slapped me on the shoulder with a smile. We made our way down the hallway and back into the lobby where the lunch crowd was beginning to trickle in. I pulled out a barstool for Bella and she climbed up. I kissed the back of her head before scooting her chair in and crawling up to my own seat.

Knowing that we had a big dinner planned we kept our order light, opting to share a few tapas. We had the White Truffle Italian Pita and an order of Angry Chicken Lollipops. Admittedly selecting the latter purely because the name was so intriguing. The food was delicious as was predictable in a big-city-chic new bistro such as that one. We were served drinks, especially chosen for us by Jacques. Bella had a French Sauvignon Blanc in a chilled glass with caramel drizzled along the inside and a dollop of raspberry coulis, while I had a pint of pale lager. Thank God, my head hurt just looking at the froufrou shit Bella was drinking – but she seemed happy, which was all that mattered.

Just as we were finishing our lunch, Jacques emerged on the opposite side of the bar smiling and holding open a beautiful cream-coloured box filled with chocolates. He laid three out before Bella on the glossy bar, one of each variety. Pointing to each, he named them off.

First was a white chocolate truffle with a caramel Crème Brule cream filling. Second was a "muted milk chocolate" wafer with a smooth butterscotch ripple down the centre. Finally, the piece-de-resistance was a champagne-infused white chocolate truffle with a muddled strawberry shortcake filling. He offered her each candy as he explained with pride the flavours and how they subtly worked together to create a harmonious experience. He told us that the chocolates all contained such fresh ingredients that they would have to be eaten before the end of the weekend, which judging by Bella's goofy smile and bulging eyes after each nibble I didn't foresee being a problem. He thanked us as we thanked him for his generosity, saying that it was his pleasure. He wished us a long and happy life, filled with wonderful Valentine's celebrations. Bella teared up and popped the second half of the champagne truffle in her mouth to cover up the way her lower lip wavered. We took our little box of specially designed chocolates and exited the bistro.

It was pouring outside and we huddled under the red awning for a moment, discussing what we should do next. I told her dinner reservations were not until six PM and that we could do whatever she wanted to in the meantime. She leaned against the stone wall and chewed on her lip, appearing to contemplate the afternoon's agenda, but I knew her better than that.

With my finger lightly under her chin, I raised her face to meet mine and tilted my head to the side in silent question. She blinked rapidly and shook her head at me. I leaned in to nudge the tip of her nose with mine in soft, silent encouragement. If something was wrong I wanted to know what it was. I traced a few light kisses over her cheekbone and at her temple. Wrapping my arms around her, careful not to tip the box of chocolates, I pulled her into a hug. I felt her cheek press against my chest.

"Please tell me," I whispered.

"I hope we do…you know…have a long and happy life full of so many cheesy Valentine's Day's that we run out of ideas for what to do each year." Her words were soft and muffled by my jacket as she hugged me, but I still heard them. More importantly, I felt them.

"Of course we will, Bella." Her named poured out of my mouth like honey and I tried with everything I had to convey how much I truly believed what I as saying.

"It scares me how much I love you, Edward, and how much I need you. I've lived without you before and I don't think I could ever do it again. It was easily the worst year of my life. You are so much more than just my best friend, and yet…that is _everything _that you are," her little voice tapered off as she got lost inside her own thoughts. "I love you. Thank you."

I brushed the hair back off her cheek and gripped the side of her face firmly, leaning away from her and ducking my head to be level with hers. If nothing else, the intensity that burned behind my eyes would assure her that I never had any intention of living without her right beside me ever again. I said as much and pressed my lips into hers passionately.

"I love you, Isabella," I murmured low and thick as we separated. "Now…wanna go play with some puppies at the pet store or something?"

* * *

AWWWWW

Puppies are cute.

So are sparklepeens covered in caramel sauce.

Just sayin'.

I love you.

Air

~xox~


	24. Taste Kisses

Taste Part II:

There is still more tasting to be had...these kids just refuse to be rushed.

*shrugs*

So...I agreed to write another one-shot for a blog. IKR? It is for http:/www . thetwinklings . blogspot . com/ and their weekly feature called Fuck Me Fridays. It should post on August 20th. I'll keep you posted.

Thank you to Lulu_M5 for beta'ing the back chapters of SS for me. It means she is double reading all the smut...tough job I know. But she is brill!

And HUGE thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and held my hand while I whined. I'm over it now, I promise.

Enjoy dinner.

* * *

Unlike my sister, Bella took very little time to get ready for an evening out. I had only been dressed ten minutes myself, standing in the kitchen organizing the endless sea of green and brown beer bottles for recycling, before I heard her heels clicking around in my bedroom. I finished tossing the bottles into the recycling bag, rinsed off my hands, and made my way toward the bedroom. Before I could reach the door, Bella opened it herself.

I literally stood frozen with my mouth agape for what could have easily been ten minutes if not longer. She twisted her lips up into a shy little sideways smirk and bent her knee, twisting her foot on the floor and looking over herself. When her eyes shifted back up to mine she arched a little eyebrow and asked, "Yeah?" in a quiet, unsure voice. I had to scrub my palms over my face to keep from rolling my eyes dramatically at her unnecessary questioning.

She stood, framed by the doorway, in a short red dress and heels. It was a thick satin material, strapless with a seam stitched under her breasts, and flowed out into a sharp A. It then fluttered from another seam sewn around her hips into thick pleats and folds in the cutest and most feminine little skirt I had ever seen Bella wear. It was so short, and her bright red heels were so high, that her creamy legs looked a thousand miles long. Her heels tied around the delicate bone of her ankle in a pretty, satin bow and the ends hung down the side of her arch. She balanced on a pinpoint steel heel and as beautiful as the shoes were, I wondered about the hazard to her safety. Luckily for her, I didn't plan to have my hands off her long enough for her to so much as wobble on those sinfully sexy, deathtraps.

I licked my lips and fought to drag my eyes away from her legs and back to her awaiting gaze. Her hair was loose and wavy. It flowed flawlessly around her face and down her back. A faint sparkle of light bounced of the delicate chain around her neck and I smiled at the locket I had given her over a year ago. My fingers reached out to scoop it up gently, lifting it away from her skin, and pulling the locket from inside her dress. I slid them down the length of the chain carefully. With a nostalgic smile on my lips, I kissed the locket and then slipped it back under the red satin. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

"Bella," I choked. Somehow the word stuck in my throat and the thoughts in my mind were a twisted jumble of chaos. My head was bouncing up and down, nodding my approval with silent fervour. "You look…unbelievable." A smile lit up her little face. I would never understand how she couldn't appreciate how truly beautiful she always was.

She reached up and adjusted the narrow black tie, which I always managed to tie miserably. She tugged at it until it was perfect and then pat it, smiling up at me. I placed my palms on either side of the open doorway and leaned into her predatorily, all my weight balancing on the balls of my feet as my eyes hammered into hers. Admittedly, my thoughts were less than pure. I loved her – but I also loved being _inside _her. I heard her breath catch as she watched my features darken. She arched her back away from me but didn't shuffle her feet backward.

"What?" she asked in an innocent voice. Her tongue peeked out and wet her lips. My eyes were automatically drawn to the movement but they lingered long after she was finished. I tilted my head to the side and smirked at her, allowing my thoughts to wander a little deeper before I spoke.

I swept my gaze over her once more, exaggeratedly, and then whispered, "I love being me." She giggled and shoved me back with her hand on my shoulder. I dropped my arms and smirked at her as she clicked past me and into the living room, searching for the coat she had tossed on the couch earlier.

As I helped her slip her arms into the creamy trench coat I couldn't help the groan as I remembered what she wore underneath it when she first arrived. From there, I began musing about she may have had on under the red satin dress. Once her jacket was buttoned I let my fingers trail down her arms and over her hips before offering her a sincere smile.

"You look handsome," she said sweetly to me. "I always love this outfit on you." She ran her fingertips down the front of the dark charcoal gray vest and pulled at the ends to straighten it. I wore matching trousers and a white shirt with pale grey pin striping and black tattoo embellishments along the back and lapels. Only hints of the embellishments poked out from under the vest.

"That's because you bought it for me," I joked, kissing the tip of her nose. "And thank you. Shall we?" I offered her my bent arm like the gentleman I was raised to be.

She melted into me and we were off . I glowered at the deadbolt on my way out. Turning to lock the door behind me I silently threatened it through the old wood separating us. If I ever found myself three seconds away from burying my dick inside my delectable girlfriend again, it had better not fuck with me. I turned and smiled sweetly at Bella, slipping my hand over hers and steered her toward the elevator instead of the stairwell given her heels.

The entire thirty-seven second elevator ride I could not get images of Bella pressed against the doorway out of my mind. Tonight she was wearing a microscopic dress that, at the slightest parting of her thighs to allow me to press against her, would send the rich, red fabric up and over her hips. She would be warm and welcoming and ready for me before my fingers even found her, sliding aside…

The elevator dinged and I shook my head to clear the images away. It didn't exactly work, but I ignored them while I guided us through the doors and onto the street to hail a cab.

"Uhm…where were you just now?" Bella asked with a coy smile playing at her lips as a yellow Prius pulled up against the curb.

I opened the door for her and held her hand in mine to steady her as she lowered herself in. "Sliding my fingers inside you as I had you and this little, red dress smashed up against the outside of my apartment door later tonight," I answered as casually as if I were telling her about the restaurant we were headed to.

I closed the door gently, ignoring her widened eyes and rounded the back of the car to the other side. I climbed in and gave the driver my directions. He nodded, clearly fighting to keep the smirk off his face as he looked back at me. He undeniably heard the answer I gave Bella.

Once we were moving I leaned back into my seat, buckled, and then turned back to Bella. Her cheeks matched her dress and her lips were pursed together tightly as her eyes silently reprimanded the shit out of me. She was difficult to take serious when it also looked like she wanted to laugh, but refused purely on principle.

"What?" I scoffed, incredulous. "I'm sure he has _seen _far worse back here never mind overhearing a few dirty words."

I picked Bella's hand up off her lap and kissed the backs of her knuckles lightly, my eyes smouldering into hers. She shook her head at my continued brazenness and narrowed her eyes in threat at me.

"Isn't that right, buddy?" I asked the cabbie, slapping him on the shoulder good naturedly, looking between him and Bella to see who would react first.

"Oh, you cannot imagine the things I have seen through this," he replied warmly in a broken Middle Eastern accent. He tapped the corner of his rear view mirror. "But don't worry. I always pretend I cannot see…or hear for that matter."

"See?" I smiled my crooked, shit-disturber smirk at Bella and waggled my eyebrows. "It's nothing."

"Oh, you are going to get it," she whispered. She made no move to swipe her hand from mine or to angle her body away from me. And I could tell by the gleam in her eye that she was not upset.

"That's the plan," I sang under my breath.

"Oh yeah?" Now she pulled her hand back. She crossed her arms over her chest and turned as far toward me as she could within the confines of her seatbelt. "I thought you said you never _try_ to seduce me?" She raise a brow at me and waited for my rebuttal.

I met her gaze for a few moments, chuckled softly under my breath, and then leaned in. I slid my hand under her hair. My hand was large compared to the delicate column of her neck. My fingers wrapped around the back and the tips brushed against the other side just below her ear. I ducked my head down and kissed the thin skin that was right beside the heel of my hand. I lapped twice at it before sucking in graduated strength, starting out tenderly and ending just before I would leave a mark behind on the underside of her chin. I felt her chest quake under my kisses. I purred into her ear.

"Bella. Every second I spend with you is a slow seduction. Every breath I take is designed to lure you to me, to comfort you and hold you so that you will happily choose to stay beside me for the rest of your life."

The cab driver announced that we were at our destination. His deep voice startled both of us so much we jolted against each other. I pushed the little red button at her hip and released her from her restraints, before snapping my own off of me and lifting my ass up off the bench seat to pull my wallet from my back pocket. I paid the cabbie, leaving him a generous tip for being kind enough to joke around with me on a busy Saturday evening.

Bella was still in the cab when I reached the sidewalk. I knew it wasn't so much that she was allowing me to be chivalrous and open the door for her, but that she was still trying to remember how to operate her lungs.

I opened the door for her, grateful at the opportunity no matter it's source, and offered her my hand. She took it and mumbled an incoherent thank you to the driver as I helped her from the vehicle. Just before the door closed shut the driver caught my eye and nodded at me. I smiled back in response to his silent compliments and well wishes.

Daniel.

It was a supremely elegant restaurant in the heart of Manhattan with formal French roots but, from what I heard when asking around, the food was mind-blowing with a modern presentation. There was a gigantic double-tier, closed container chandelier offering an angelic muted glow to the dining room. The back wall was a cacophony of waterfalls and basins filled with water lilies, irises, and elegant greenery that swirled and cascaded against one another, filling the room with the smooth, relaxing sounds of moving water. The western wall was comprised entirely of backlit mirrors that sparkled against the dark marble bar in front of it. All the other walls were a faux-stone made to look like the interiors of an ancient castle, with pillars, candle sconces, and rose-coloured draperies.

Our table was large, yet Bella sat close to me. It was draped in a creamy cloth with a shallow bowl of fresh flowers floating at its centre. The velvet, rose-coloured seats were plush and we sank into them comfortably. The room was exquisite, but it was nothing compared to my wide-eyed girlfriend who was easily the most stunning woman in the room had I cared enough to look around and notice. She sat with her hands daintily at her lap and took in the peaceful surroundings with the large eyes of someone who truly appreciated things in life.

Bella awestruck me. I would never change a single, minute thing about her. Everyday she exemplified how truly perfect she was. She turned to face me. We sat on the same half of the round table with our backs to the Maître D podium, facing the water feature.

"Wow," she said simply, smiling in a way that truly pulled at my heart's strings.

I smiled a slow, easy smile back at her.

"Okay, so obviously I have never been here. But from what I hear we should do the six-course tasting menu with wine pairings," I said pushing a menu toward her on the table.

There were options for each tier of the course, each came with a meticulously selected wine pairing from one of the in-house sommeliers. When the waiter came back to us, we gave him our selections and soon found ourselves humming and awing over how truly savoury the food was. We chose different items so we could share, but I practically had to fight Bella for a small bite of her foie gras, which ultimately, she ended up just dipping her own fork into and allowing me to taste it. I realised instantly why she defended it. It literally melted into my mouth and made my palate explode. It was going to be an awesome meal if everything was as intoxicating as the first course.

By the third course we had given each other many wide-eyed looks of satisfaction after each new bite. The course was cleared away and Bella took a slow sip from the flute that had accompanied the last plate. Closing her eyes against the purity of a perfectly paired wine, she set down her glass, opened her eyes, and addressed me.

"So, I kind of have a confession to make." Her fingers lightly caressed the base of her glass as she swirled the sparkling white liquid around the insides. It caught the candlelight and danced across the white tablecloth, leaving little flickers of light on Bella's cheeks.

"Oh?" I furrowed my brows at her and took a drink from my own glass. I tried to maintain an air nonchalance to play along with her, but I was deeply curious as to what her revelation was going to be.

I knew Bella. I knew everything about her. I knew her likes and dislikes, her favourite songs, foods, drinks, and games. I knew what she needed when she was hurting on the inside and how to bring her pleasure that could have her crying helplessly in my arms. I knew what it meant when she bit her lip or scraped her toe along the ground. I knew what was going through her mind when her eyes twitched or she looked to the left to avoid me.

Presently, I understood the meaning behind the way her fingertips busied themselves and she lightly chewed on the inside of her cheek. Whatever she was going to tell me, while it was surely not going to be some sort of life-altering surprise, it was bigger than the joke she was implying with her light tone. She was nervous, but it was not something she regretted. And she was ready to come clean.

I wasn't nervous – Bella would never hurt me. My self and my heart were safe with her. But to say that I was intrigued would be a gross understatement. She definitely had my attention. My eyes were warm but I held her gaze securely, waiting for her to proceed.

"I'm afraid," she murmured lowly, pausing dramatically to swallow and take a deep breath before continuing. "You've been hoodwinked." She brought the crystal glass to her lips one more time, drawing a slow pull and emptying it before returning it to the table. She looked to me to see my reaction, which was admittedly puzzled, but also highly amused.

_I was "hoodwinked"? What the hell does that mean? By who?_

"I beg your pardon," I looked for clarification.

"Okay, so don't get mad," she began, but was rudely interrupted – by me.

"I love explanations that begin that way."

She narrowed one eye at me and glared until I raised my palms in surrender – a silent vow to allow her to continue without further interruption.

"As I was saying, it is complicated, but I'm sure you can keep up." She took a deep breath to steady herself and then continued. "I guess I was just sad and confused. And you were…not around, like, at all. Which I get, but you know…"

The waiter returned with our fourth course. I was suddenly uninterested. For a moment I studied her while the waiter spoke with words that didn't reach my ears. Had I been wrong about reading her before? Was this going to be a serious confession that I wouldn't want to hear but that she felt the need to unburden herself with?

Bella eyed her new course with appraising eyes and smiling sweetly at the waiter as she thanked him. She would not be so tenderly blasé if she was about to say anything that would hurt me. I steeled myself and offered a tight smile to the man as he backed away.

Bella picked up her new fork. I was entirely unaware of the food in front of me. "Please, continue." My vocal chords felt constricted.

Bella took a bite of her food, smiled, her lips wrapping gently around the tangs of her fork. She lowered it back to her meal and then brought a small bite to my mouth. I eyed her warily but took the bite, momentarily forgetting my worry as the food dissolved onto my tongue.

"Oh, that's good," I murmured, picking up my own fork and breaking off another piece. If I recalled from when she placed her order, the artwork on the stark white plate with orange and brown drizzle was a Moroccan quail stuffed with cornbread pudding. It was atop a pile of purple potatoes, sauced with a tomato-corn relish, and it was delicious.

"Hey!" she pouted, scooting her plate away from me. "You haven't even tried your own, yet." She reached over and twirled her fork into my truffle linguini.

"I'm kind of more interested in what you have to say," I replied honestly. We were always honest. She rolled her eyes and finished chewing.

"Oh jeez, dramatic much?" she took a sip of her new wine. It was something dark and bold and zesty, I could smell it in the air between us as soon as she swirled the glass before bringing it to her lips. "Honestly, Edward. It's nothing like that." She giggled and shook her head at me. The vice grip on my chest loosened.

I needed to learn to trust myself more. I read her signs. I knew the calibre of what to expect. I was momentarily caught of guard by her admission of loneliness. But I realised she only told me that to give me a frame of reference. It told me without a doubt the precise time in our lives she was talking about.

"So anyway," she said after dabbing a napkin to her lower lip gently. "My point was just that I needed someone to talk to. It was the Christmas after…well…"

"The Volvo," I supplied, finishing her fledgling thought.

"Yes. 'The Volvo'." She made air quotes and sneered playfully at me.

I took a bite of pasta and tried to appreciate it's subtle flavours while I waited for her to continue. I was much less anxious.

"So it was Christmas and you didn't come home and I was a bit of a wreck. Everyone noticed, but nobody said anything. Until the night before I left to go back to school. I was home by myself with my iPod ear buds in, sprawled out on my bed studying. So imagine my surprise when my bedroom door suddenly flew open and your sister ripped my iPod from me and began screaming."

She paused for a moment to take a bite and a sip of her wine while I absorbed the scene. I pictured an angry Alice. She was small, but a storm to be reckoned with when she was pissed.

I reached out and took her free hand in mine. I took bite of my food and waited with a smile on my face.

"To make a long story short… And here's the part where I don't want you to get mad," she whispered. "I ended up telling her everything. And I mean _everything. _I sat and spilled my friggin' heart out to her until the sun came up. I've told her everything ever since."

_What?_

"That was over three years ago," she added quietly, finalizing her point.

She re-crossed her legs at the knee, straightened her dress, and smiled up at me from under her long eyelashes. She had a hint of something in her eye that I found incredibly sexy.

"Everything?" It was literally the most coherent sentence I could push out of my mouth. It wasn't that I was upset with Bella by any means. Nor did I mind that Alice knew earlier than I thought. I was just slow at processing it all.

"Mmm hmm…everything." She nodded casually while taking a twirl of my pasta. "Who do you think helped me pick out that outfit I had under my trench coat when I first got here?"

That snapped my mind back into gear.

"Okay, wait! What?" I nearly choked as I spat out the words. "Bella," I groaned, drawing her name out to at least five syllables.

"Oh shut up, Edward. She is my friend. I need her in my life and I need to be able to discuss my sex life with my best girlfriend. I'm sorry that she also happens to be your little sister, but you're just going t have to deal with it. Alice certainly doesn't care…hence the imported lingerie she bought without even asking me first."

Her tone was light and breezy about the idea that my little sister bought my girlfriend a sexy outfit knowing full well the effect it would create in me. All I could do was slowly shake my head from side to side in a dumb, silent refutation of the idea.

"So anyway, my point is," she began again, rubbing soothing circles against the underside of my wrist with her thumb as I continued to hold her hand. "You should have heard her after she left here last month. She told me she weaseled a fair deal of information out of you and that she delivered a 'shocked' performance that would have the Academy falling at her feet."

"What a scam artist," I muttered, chewing my food more roughly then the soft noodles necessarily required. "So all this time…?"

"Yup. All this time." Bella's eyes met mine. They were soft and deep and they twinkled beautifully under the gentle, ambient lighting.

"So, what about Jasper?" I asked.

Bella shrugged. "What about him? I trust Alice, Edward, and while I know that they are practically an extension of one another, Alice wouldn't betray my trust like that. It doesn't concern him and so of course she never told him a thing."

I had to laugh. I laughed until my sides stitched. I quieted myself when Bella glared at me from over the edge of her wine glass and then kicked me in the shin under the table. I mashed my lips together until I could trust myself not to begin chuckling again, and then took a deep breath and sighed.

"What's so funny about this? Besides the fact that she totally scammed you that night at the sushi place?"

"Jasper knows. Bella, you _know _that Jasper knows. Do you not remember Emmett and Rosalie's wedding?" I stared at her as she twisted her features up in thought.

"What about it?" she finally asked.

I knew it. She was too hung over that morning to remember much of anything, even the noteworthy parts. I reminded her that I had briefly explained to her the next morning how all the stuff she left in the banquet room came to be just inside the hotel room door. I then told her of the many talks I had with Jasper over the last couple of years, and how supportive and sincere he had been for me. It dawned on us both that the night of the wedding, Jasper had no difficulty coercing Alice to allow him to stay in her room, easily shrugging off the idea that Bella would be able to find somewhere else to spend the night. I voiced aloud to Bella how thoroughly impressed I was with my baby sister that she kept Bella's secret so devoutly, even from Jasper. She agreed and it warmed my heart that my girl and my baby sister were such great friends.

We spent the remainder of the meal sharing stories about Alice and Jasper and some of the bits of wisdom and encouragement they had offered us over the years. I was overwhelmingly thankful that Bella had someone close to her that she could openly discuss our relationship with. It would make the next few years more bearable.

Holding miniature spoons and sipping expertly paired French Banyuls dessert wine, we scooted closer to share our final course. A strawberry soufflé with raspberry sorbet and a warm butter cake with caramelized apricots sat between us. After a few bites I leaned in and pressed my lips gently to hers, tasting the mix of Bella and sugar as my tongue gently swept across hers. Our hands stayed atop the table, holding spoons and wine glasses, while our lips moved against one another's slowly in a display that was perfectly acceptable in public.

Just before we parted completely I went back in and placed a few extra chaste pecks along the corner of her mouth, nuzzling against her cheek and whispering that I loved her.

I straightened back out and took a bite of the warm cake, my eyes watching hers while she smiled quietly to herself and stared into her wine glass. She looked back up after a few moments, with tiny, nearly imperceptible tears glossing her eyes.

I set down my spoon and dragged my finger along her jaw tenderly, prompting her to talk to me.

"Alice also told me you had some really wonderful things to say about me. Things she couldn't even repeat without growling at her own inability to replicate your words properly. She said she wished she secretly recorded you. That you went off on some heart-wrenching tirade about how you feel like you can't breathe without me near and that I am everything to you." Her little voice quieted the closer she got to finishing her story. She finally stopped and hung her head, moving her hands to her lap and fiddling with the edges of her napkin.

I growled. "She's fucking dead," I muttered under my breath, chuckling silently.

Bella looked up from under her wet eyelashes and rolled her eyes, grinning. I scooted my chair closer until our knees were pressed against one another's. Dipping my head down, I cupped my hands just under her jaw and angled her face just enough to look at me. I stared deep into her chocolate-brown eyes for several long moments, the silence and the proximity entirely comfortable for us. She just blinked and swallowed and breathed regularly, waiting for me to speak, knowing that I would when I was ready.

I licked my lips and furrowed my brow. "You _are_ everything to me. And I _can't _breathe properly unless you are somewhere near me. I meant every word I said to that annoying little cretin. I would give anything to be able to take back the decision to go to separate universities and be living our life together right now, instead of twiddling our thumbs and banging our fucking heads against the wall waiting for a clock that never seems to go anywhere. But here we are, and no matter what solution I try and come up with, it seems like we have to stay this way for another couple of years at least…

"But I love you. So much it kills me. And that's enough, for now anyway. Well, that and the occasional slutty outfit." I knocked my knee lightly against hers under the table in jest and winked at her. "But please, for the love of God, the next time my little sister helps you pick out something to wear that I end up banging the shit out of you in…have the decency _not _to mention that part to me. It thoroughly creeps me out." I grimaced and shuddered dramatically, shaking my head almost violently to get the idea out.

"Deal," she giggled, reaching up and petting the side of my head. Her fingernails trailed above my ear in a motion as if she were tucking my hair behind it had it been longer. She circled the shell of my ear and smiled at me. "But don't hate the cretin, she did good. And she's been there so much for me."

"I love you," I said in a low voice, leaning in for another kiss. When I resurfaced, I muttered that I loved Alice too, despite how annoying she could be.

"Remind me to text her something later," she said with a wily grin.

I nodded and reached up to drape my arm around her shoulders. I pulled her against my side and she rest her head at my collarbone. She intertwined her fingers with mine as they rested at her shoulder. We sat like that for the remainder of the night while he finished our dessert wines and moved on to coffee. We chatted easily and freely, her body occasionally shaking mine gently as she giggled at something I did or said.

As she talked I would stroke the side of her hip with my fingertips and lean my chin on top of her head. More often than not my lips were pressed into her hair placing innocent little kisses as I listened to her. Her voice was a calm comfort that crawled inside me and stretched and snuggled in until it was warm and cozy. It was home.

It was not an overstatement to say that she was "everything" to me. She genuinely was. She represented my past, my present, and my future. She was my guidance and my purpose. She was love.

She gently set her purse down on the countertop back in my apartment and bent at the waist to untie the satin ribbons from her ankles. I came up behind her and stilled her movements, draping my large palm over her small hand as she balanced on one foot reaching for her shoe. I couldn't see her face, but I knew the soft smile that would lay at her lips and the way her eyelids would peacefully flutter as she absorbed the energy from my touch.

I wove my fingers between hers and raised our joined hands to the counter. I settled hers on the bar and then gently pushed aside the thick veil of hair from her back and neck. Placing a straight line of calm, unhurried kisses from the nape of her neck to her shoulders, I rest my hands on her hips. She hummed as the heat from my hands absorbed into her skin through the satin of her dress. I spun her until she was facing me. Her teeth pushed into her lip and her eyes were closed. I lifted her to the counter easily and placed her on the edge. Her eyes opened and found mine instantly. Her breaths were slow and heavy.

I bent to my knees, letting the backs of my fingers glide first down her arms and then down her legs as I knelt. I fingered the pretty red satin reverently, smiling up at her before pulling at the ends and loosening the bows at each ankle.

I cradled one shoe after the other carefully in my hands and slipped them from her feet, kneading her arches with my thumbs until she moaned. I placed the heels neatly to the side before standing up again. Our eyes met and we looked in silence for a long stretch of time. There was no expectation in her dark eyes – no judgement or preoccupation, nothing selfish that I could ultimately disappoint. She was pure and simple. And she loved me. That was the only thing I saw in her eyes.

Her hands slid over my chest and around my neck where I felt her fingers lace together in my hair. She smiled up at me and pulled me closer for a hug. I wrapped my arms around her back, doubling up against themselves and embracing her tightly. I breathed in her scent and placing kisses wherever my lips could reach without pulling out of the hug.

We both whispered that we loved one another at the same time, and then our bodies gently bounced together as we laughed at the timing. I feathered my lips over the exposed skin of her shoulder and then slid her off the edge of the counter. My hands held her thighs and she wrapped her legs around my waist.

I slowly walked to my bedroom. Her lips found mine and she kissed me so softly, so affectionately, that it was leagues above intimate. Her breath warmed my lips and her tongue delicately touched mine with every pass. She could pet my soul when she kissed me like that.

I pushed the door open with my toe and shut it with my heel after I carried Bella through. It was time I made love to her properly.

* * *

Dessert to follow...

IYKWIMAITYD

*giggle*

HEARTS!

Air

~xox~


	25. Touch

I feel like there are too many people to thank.

I feel honoured, humbled, and abso-freaking-lutely flabbergasted by all the love and support.

I literally fucking jump on the couch and fist pump the air with every review, tweet, blog, and forum thread.

This gets awkward when they come through on my blackberry while I am at Starbucks...but whatever. lol

Let's get _touchy_-feely...yes?

And...GO!

xox

* * *

It had been a long day. Thoroughly enjoyable, but long nonetheless. My body was feeling the effects. Fatigue licked at my bones like the fingers of a flame, luring me back home and to me bed. But it would be cold and lonely and I wasn't ready to go there yet.

The rain that had been threatening all day was finally coming down in torrents. It began three hours earlier and continued incessantly, streaking thick, clear smears across the glass in front of me. The lights and bustle and voices just on the other side of the glass reached me, but they were dull and distant as I sunk further inside myself.

We promised each other we wouldn't sulk. Well…technically I agreed to _try. _Nevertheless, I was sure that somewhere thirty thousand feet above me was a girl with mahogany hair and rich, haunting eyes who was shedding a few tears quietly in her seat.

I growled and slammed my forehead forward to meet with the steering wheel of the car. I beat it against the tightly wrapped leather a couple of times just to feel the thud. I closed my eyes and exhaled heavily. There was nothing left to do but sit up straight and put the car in gear and try harder to keep my promise.

My body moved automatically as I parked the car and found my way on foot in the rain back to my building. I didn't even bother to pull up the hood of the sweatshirt that peaked out from my jacket. I was barely cognizant of the rain that stuck my saturated hair to my forehead and trickled down my back, soaking me from the inside out.

I lost the battle with my will as I climbed the stairs. I was sinking into a heavy sadness. I fought with the deadbolt and then snapped at my lazy-ass fucking roommate who was laying on the couch the entire time he heard me struggling with the lock. I slammed my bedroom door like a petulant teenager and flopped gracelessly onto my bed. A feral groan slipped through my lips.

It smelled like her. Sugar and strawberries and coconut and life.

I reached out and fisted the navy blue cotton of what would now always be Bella's pillow in my mind, and smothered my face with it. My eyes closed and I faded slowly into something that was just outside the periphery of real sleep.

I replayed the last twenty-four hours in my mind with a light, unconscious smile pressed against the underside of the pillow. I knew the remnants of her stay were scattered around the apartment. A cream-coloured box sat emptied of its chocolates on the top of my nightstand. The receipt for Tiffany & Co. was still in my wallet. Bella left her shampoos and soap behind, along with a few other things, that were tucked into a basket at the back of my bathroom cabinet, so she would not have to pack them next time. There was a nondescript, black, plastic bag stuffed along with its contents in the top drawer of my dresser anxiously awaiting the light of day…_or _the dark of night.

But the most prominent evidence was the flavour of Bella still thick on the back of my tongue and the memory of how her body felt underneath my fingertips. Those were the things that were permanently embedded into my mind and could never be erased, no matter the time or distance that separated us.

It had been the day of _touch_. We touched a lot. Both privately and publically.

The touching began as I held her in my arms and carried her through the threshold of my bedroom the night before, where I slowly stripped her bare. I let her take her time with me and we made love perfectly, the way we had mastered with one another over the years. I was diligent in taking my time. I was attentive with the measured kisses which I placed kisses over every surface of her body. I spent forty minutes on her left arm alone, much to her amusement.

It was the kind of sex that was leisurely and comfortable. As I dragged the tip of my nose from her wrist to her shoulder along the hypersensitive skin on the inside of her arm she giggled and pushed me away, knowing I was tickling her on purpose. We joked back and forth and she talked softly about nothing in particular as I kissed the tangle of veins at her wrist and sucked at the inside of her elbow.

I had slowly placed my lips at each of her fingers, sucking on them and leaving them with a small kiss at their tips before moving on to the next. I looked up at her from under my lashes with her skin against my lips and would smirk or wink at her just to see her smile in response.

Before anything overtly sexual began, I kissed along the dip between her shoulder and neck, feeling Bella's toes as they wiggled against the inside of my thigh where her leg lay draped around me. I had one arm outstretched across her body while the other supported myself. Her fingers found my hair as always and began petting downwards. It felt so nice my eyes closed and I found myself leaning into her touch greedily.

My head ended up resting against the shoulder I had been kissing and I lay there for quite some time allowing her to stroke me while I talked with a feathery breath about everything from my thesis to her body just enjoying the touch and never wanting it to end. My fingers absentmindedly curled and then uncurled the tail end of a piece of hair that fanned out around her head and we spoke, naked and pressed against each other innocently.

It was in those moments that I experienced the most happiness. The small moments that could not be defined easily. We were chatting. We were touching. We were playing. We were making love.

At one point I lay on my belly between Bella's legs while the tip of my finger traced faint little circles along the inside of her thighs and around her entrance. My other arm was bent on top of her thigh with my palm spread flat against her skin while I balanced my chin on top of it, silently watching my own ministrations with a wicked smirk on my lips.

Bella was raised up on one of her elbows with her head relaxed to the side, resting against her shoulder looking at me. The fingertips of her free hand traced patterns on the tops of my shoulders and my back, wherever they could reach. Just before I made a more honest attempt at circling further inside her she mumbled something about how much she preferred my hair when it was in need of a haircut as it was now.

She confessed that the older I got, the sexier it looked when it was slightly shaggy – which made me glare at her because my hair was never anything remotely close to shaggy. It was just that on occasion I grew lazy and waited a few extra weeks to get it cut.

Apparently Bella found that sexy. Her fingers twisted deeply into it and knotted. I made a mental note and then silenced her by plunging my two fingers into her completely. Nails scratched at the back of my neck and her head fell heavily against the blue pillow. I chuckled to myself as I worked her over flawlessly.

The sun rose and we couldn't have cared less. Bella sat perched on my lap while I leaned against the wall at the head of my bed, deep inside her. She kissed along my neck as she held me tight with her arms locked under mine and around my back. We could scarcely move we were holding each other so close, but it was less about the friction and more about the contact by that point – we had both already climaxed multiple times. I just refused to unplug myself from her until I absolutely had to.

Her lips lay against my ear, her cheek on my shoulder, as she whispered that she loved me and that she loved the way I loved her.

"You adore me so thoroughly. I feel like no other girl in the history of the universe has ever experienced this level of devotion. I love you so much, Edward."

I ran my fingertips up her spine and over her shoulder until I could slip them gently under her chin and bring her face up to mine. I looked her in the eyes and lost myself for a long time. When I remembered what it was that I meant to say I told her that I felt just as lucky. Then I replaced my hands underneath her thighs and lifted and then lowered her back down onto me so we could continue our slow, easy lovemaking until neither one of us had any more energy left to give.

We showered together, dressed and left the apartment. We walked slowly along the relatively empty streets with coffees in hand, tired, but unwilling to lose any time together lost in sleep. Metal gates were raised loudly over storefronts and people in aprons swept sidewalks as we passed. Thick grey clouds lingered overhead ominously threatening rain.

I stopped and pulled back on Bella's hand to make her stop. I silently handed her my coffee cup and then pulled up on the collar of her jacket, bringing it higher around her neck. I readjusted her scarf and tucked the ends down the front of her jacket and then fastened another button with a wink. I kissed her on the apple of her cheek, took back my coffee cup, and reclaimed her hand as she rolled her eyes and grinned at me.

We reached the building just as it was opening. Bella turned at me with a hesitant smirk after she read the simple, black letters that artfully ran together into one big word against the stone wall, the X at the end in boldface. The storefront windows were blocked with a bright red, velvet backdrop with nothing but the word "ACTION" scrawled across the glass in white paint, advertising the current exhibit.

"Only New York City would have a museum, complete with a Fifth Avenue storefront, dedicated entirely to sex," she said, shaking her head but looking intrigued. I nodded – she was probably right. "Even the building looks sexy."

We spent the first half of the day touring the Museum of Sex. There were live exhibits discussing everything from technique to technology. We were both thoroughly captivated, though for different reasons, by the one titled Action: 'Sex and the Moving Image'. It contained items such as short videos interviewing media moguls and psychologists, demonstrations, samples from media throughout the last hundred years, and even a guest lecturer.

He was a medical professional and spoke in depth about how media has always been laden with images and innuendo which shape our desires, mannerisms, interactions and relationships as a society. Furthermore, how those innuendo have become much stronger and more aggressive in modern media.

Bella was enthralled from a journalistic perspective, while I found myself captivated by the psychology of it all. The way sex and nudity had battled during the last century through legislation and media. The exhibit had testimony from law-makers, film-makers, and advocates from either perspective discussing what should be considered "too obscene" or immoral to be offered up for public consumption.

The lines of morality have been greyed for the last many decades and many psychologists and doctors were cited with differing stances on sexuality in media and the way people cognitively perceive innuendo. Thus the controversy.

We spent hours pouring over that one exhibit, debating amongst ourselves our own particular viewpoints. By the time we left the display we had agreed on one thing wholeheartedly – moral or not, we both thoroughly appreciated all forms of the liberated modern media.

In addition to the main exhibit there was another room we found highly interesting. It was dedicated to the history of sex and the evolution of sex toys. There were silly exhibits about the Sex Lives of Animals or that of Robots. All in all, we learned a lot, debated a lot, played with a lot of things, and became highly aroused on more than one occasion.

As we walked around the café eating our sandwiches we tinkered with the various contraptions and toys that were lightly chained to the counters around the perimeter of the room for our dining amusement. I picked up a weird metal thingy and wiggled it at Bella with a puzzled look. She told me to hold it by the handle and slide the little metal tines down her scalp.

She had to clasp her hand over her mouth to stifle a sincere moan when I did and then she asked me to do it again. I pushed the metal thing through her hair a few more time and laughed at her, but then she pushed me down into a chair in front of the counter and tried it on me. I immediately understood why she moaned. It felt amazing. I wanted to purr and rub against it.

Before leaving the museum we toured the gift store, which was essentially a high-end sex shop. Despite the fact that we had been having sex for six years, Bella and I had oddly enough never been into an adult store together. The experience was…_enlightening_.

I knew Bella had a couple little vibrators in her bedroom in Arizona – I saw them when I visited before. However, I had never used one on her or seen her use one on herself. Both of which I immediately realised were tragedies that had to be rectified immediately. She told me she only needed them when I wasn't around to scratch the itch that plagued her during my absence. While I appreciated the subtle compliment behind the statement, I still thought playing with them together would be fun. She agreed…while blushing.

Most of the other stuff in the store was far too kinky for our modest tastes, or just plain comical. We walked together up and down the aisles, occasionally intrigued by something, but mostly we just giggled at the same stuff while shaking our heads adamantly.

However, when we came to a large display at the end of one isle, we both stopped and looked at it pensively.

_Touch. _

It was a rack of body paints. There were stacks of brown and gold boxes with chocolate paints and several containers of artist-quality paint brushes in alluring little lines on the display stand.

Bella smiled and picked up a flat brush that was splayed out like a fan. She swept it down my nose as she studied me. "I think I like this idea," she whispered, spinning the brushing between her fingers after she finished tickling me with it.

I grabbed a box at random and flipped it over to read the back. The idea definitely had appeal, but we had never done anything like that before. The thing was, our sex was fucking mind-blowing. It was never the same, and it had never, not once, been unsatisfying for either of us. We were thorough and attentive. We knew each other well. We didn't need to incorporate anything besides us into it. But some ideas definitely had merit. The paint was one of them.

"Me too," I murmured while reading the contents of the box in my hand. It had stencils and everything – perhaps a little to structured for our playful wants. I was visualizing just kind of dribbling something edible on Bella's skin and then licking it off.

"Yeah?" she verified excitedly and grabbed something off the shelf to look at it closer.

I looked up from the back of the box and returned it to its proper place in the display. Bella had a clear glass bottle in the shape of a naked woman in her hand. It was filled with something brown and had a paintbrush taped to the side of it. I smiled at her.

"Bella, is there anything I wouldn't find pleasant about the idea of pouring chocolate on your naked body and then licking you clean?" I asked, my voice suddenly thick with grit and want.

Then we shook our heads at the same time and looked back at the display, laughing dismally. "Chocolate," we both muttered. Bella sat the naked glass woman back down on the shelf and pouted just as a saleswoman approached.

She had a friendly smile and greying hair which was pulled back into a knot. She wore a long brown skirt and looked like she could be my grandmother. I suddenly felt awkward.

"Are you two finding everything alright?" she inquired, leaning in toward Bella.

We both nodded and exchanged a timid glance.

"Alright then. Well, let me just say quickly, that body paint can be _very_ fun. You should try it if you never have," she said conspiratorially and winked at me. "This one is probably the most popular. You mix it ahead of time on the stove with your favourite chocolate bar and then just let it cool down before use." She handed Bella a small brown box with red writing.

Bella took the little box politely but shook her head. "Actually, we both like the idea but neither of us like chocolate. It actually gives him headaches," she explained and nodded toward me. I smiled innocently at the could-be-grandma.

"Oh I see. Well, that's not fun at all, is it? Follow me then," the saleslady sing-songed as she rounded the corner of the display with us trailing her. The other side of the bakers rack was much more colourful than the chocolate side. "These are the fruit-flavoured and taste-free paints. All of them are edible but none of them are cocoa based. Granted they tend to have a bit more of a synthetic flavour, much like a Life Saver or something of that nature. But at least they won't give you headaches." She nudged me lightly with a smile.

Bella and I both voiced our interest and began looking over the items. There was a glass fishbowl full of vibrant little capsules on the shelf in front of me. I picked up a handful of them and read the flavours. Lemon, Cherry, Piña Colada, Blueberry…

"Also you might like this," the woman announced, cradling a small pink jar. She unscrewed the lid and grabbed a brown feather plume from a container on the shelf. She held it in the air and turned to Bella. "May I see your wrist, dear?"

Bella bit her lip and looked to me. I nodded and looked to the saleswoman.

"It's okay. Trust me…it isn't designed to hurt," she reassured Bella.

Bella pushed up the sleeve of her jacket. She presented her thin, pale arm to the woman, who in turn swished the tip of the plume into the pink jar and then brushed some of the shimmery gold dust onto Bella's naked wrist.

"This is edible body dust," she explained. "You can smell how sweet it is, right? But it's not chocolate, it's honey flavoured, and it leaves your skin incredibly soft afterward."

They both looked at me expectantly.

My eyes widened. "What?" I blurted out before I realised the obvious.

"Go on dear, lick it like you mean it. Don't worry, I won't look," the saleslady teased and turned away.

Bella's cheeks flushed bright pink but she wiggled her arm eagerly in front of me. "You like honey…_honey_," she whispered.

I narrowed my eyes on her and drew in my cheeks as I regarded her wrist. "I _do _like honey," I purred back to her. I swore I heard the saleswoman stifle a giggle, but I ignored her.

I wrapped my fingers around Bella's wrist and raised it to my mouth. Without breaking eye contact with her, I slowly slid the tip of my tongue from the centre of her forearm to the base of her wrist, where I flattened it out and sucked firmly. I felt the skin gently raise into my mouth from the suction. I washed my tongue over the area, cleaning it of all honey dust. The flavour wasn't all that bad. The effect was fucking magnificent.

My lips lifted off Bella's skin marginally and I licked them, drawing in any dust that was left behind. Bella's blush had deepened but in a way that I knew meant something else entirely. I had to swallow hard and squirm a bit to delicately adjust myself before I released her wrist. She trembled and tried to say something, but at her first attempt at speech only came out as a strangled moan. She shook her head lightly and looked to the saleswoman who had finally turned back around to face us.

"Yeah…you can go ahead and wrap that up for us," Bella slurred, the words spilling into one another as she continued gawking at me.

I smirked and turned to the woman. "I _really _meant it."

Bella whacked me in the chest and the lady laughed. She reached out to either side of her and placed a light palm on each of our arms and told us to enjoy ourselves and to come find her if we had any further questions. She replaced the sample dust jar back on the shelf and grabbed a new box, winked at Bella, and then left us alone again.

We ended up buying several things from the shop, all of which I was eager to try out, though sadly, I knew we were going to have to wait. I cursed my poor planning. _Touch _should have been Day One.

Once we finished with the store and the museum, I lead Bella the three blocks to where the little Audi A3 Zipcar was parked. One of my roommates spent a lot of time driving back and forth to Massapequa where his family was from and where he interned at his father's law firm. I borrowed his Zipcar card with his permission and booked the Audi so that I could take Bella on a relaxing, scenic drive. I wanted to just get something to eat somewhere outside of the city and be alone for a little while before we said our goodbyes.

We took a long drive north along the FDR so Bella could look out at the bay. It was beautiful, despite the black clouds that threatened to open up on us at any moment. Bella's hand stayed inside mine the entire drive.

We chatted a little, but mostly it was a quiet drive as the old familiar ball of heat and torment began to build inside each of our bellies. I took the RFK Bridge onto Randall's Island. We wove over the hills and through the golf course. The sights were beautiful, the company was perfect, the anguish was building. We only had hours left.

I showed Bella the Manhattan Psychiatric Center where I was applying for a position in conjunction with my Master's assignment. We continued through the city and I made a spontaneous decision to take the Roosevelt Bridge and park along the wharf for an early dinner. As great as the peaceful and scenic drive was, and as much as she was enjoying seeing some of the hidden little areas just outside of Manhattan, I was ready to get the hell out of the car and get some fresh air. More importantly…I wanted to touch her more than the driving allowed for.

I parked at the southern tip of the little island and we walked along the pier. We grabbed something to eat at a quaint café on the water. With our steaming bowls of clam chowder in our hands, we went outside and sat at a bench on the bike path facing out over the water. The skyline of Manhattan was just across the bay and I pointed some things out to Bella as we sat and ate.

She was twisted on the bench so that she faced me and her legs draped over my knees as we ate. I pointed out to the left where Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty would be if we could see through all the buildings and bridges in the way. And then I felt a pang of guilt and panic.

"Oh shit! I should have taken you to the Statue of Liberty. Or the Empire State Building or Ground Zero or some shit. I'm so sorry," I said with wide eyes, suddenly wondering what the hell we spent the last three days doing and how I could have failed at showing her such major sights on her first trip to New York City.

"You're kidding right?" she asked, bending down and placing her empty bowl on the sidewalk. She placed my bowl on top of hers and then cuddled into me. "Edward, this weekend was probably the most amazing weekend of my life. The thought behind everything we did means more than I could ever possibly explain. Everything was perfect, trust me. You can show me the silly things like the Statue of Liberty _next _time I'm here." She ran her fingertips lightly over my jaw and lips as she spoke, petting me.

"Please don't leave," I whispered under my breath. I couldn't even hear the words myself they were just a silent plea on my lips. But Bella was resting her cheek against my chest and she heard me.

"Don't say that, it's not fair. We both know I have to. But I wish more than anything that I could stay here with you, Edward."

"So do it. Transfer." I was choking back tears and making highly irrational demands. I knew it was unfair, but in that moment I would have traded my soul to be able to continue holding her and never again put her on a plane that would take her away from me.

"Edward. I have that internship lined up at the newspaper and I just got pushed to assistant editor of the Web Devil." She stopped abruptly and sat up on her knees, throwing one leg over mine so she was seat on my lap facing me. She took my face in her hands and looked at me sternly for a minute before speaking again. I knew my sad puppy dog eyes were destroying her heart, but I just couldn't rearrange the features on my face no matter how hard I tried. I looked down at my hand that was clutching the side of her jacket at her hip.

"Look at me." I looked back up. "Are you done being patient? Can you not hold on any longer? Because if you can't I literally won't even get on that plane. I'll send for my shit, I don't care."

Tears welled in her eyes and I instantly felt like a jerk for being so dramatic that I scared her.

"No, baby. I'm just sad to be saying good-bye again. Of course I'm still hanging on. I'll hang on as long as it takes." I peppered a series of light kisses along her temple and cheek, drawing her closer with my arms behind her back. "You have worked too hard to get to the positions you're finally being offered in Tempe. I will not take that away from you. But so help me Bella, the day we are finally able to be together for good, I will never let you out of my sight," I growled.

"I certainly hope that's a promise," she whispered, finding my lips and kissing me deeply.

"The most permanent kind," I breathed against her mouth. I wasn't' sure if she heard me or not.

We spent our last few hours on that bench, looking out across the water while the storm clouds continued to roll in. The light faded around us and it grew impossibly cold. The white lights of buildings began popping up against the thick blanket of inky sky. I begrudgingly removed Bella from my lap so we could head back to the car.

Just as we were taking our time walking back up the wooden planks of the pier the sky opened up. Heavy ran drops splattered against the walkway and our cheeks as we took of in a sprint, holding hands, toward the car.

After warming our frozen fingers against the air vents, Bella crawled over to me and warmed her entire body against mine. I briefly wondered if there was something in the Terms of Service contract about fornicating in the communal car, but decided I didn't care all that much.

Car sex is always awkward. Lucky for us, we mastered the art years ago with my old Volvo. Small movements always worked best. It was all about staying as close as humanly possible – ducked and curled around one another until you are just one writhing, moaning ball of half-naked, orgasming flesh.

Her tears coated my cheeks by the time we finished. I held her until the last possible second, knowing we had to get moving toward JFK. It was on the road after making love that Bella put on her brave face and told me to promise her that I wouldn't spend the next four months brooding.

"We're still on for this summer, right?" she asked, her voice was quiet and weak, but she was making a genuine attempt at restraining more tears.

I nodded.

We promised one another an entire summer back home together. I was really looking forward to it. I spent a lot of time thinking about places we could sneak off to for a week to just be alone together. Maybe several days at a hotel on the beach or something.

"Good," she said taking my hand and kissing it before sighing and leaning her head against the headrest.

I pulled up to the curb outside my building and left the car idling to run in and grab Bella's bag. I slipped a little brown and teal business card into the pocket on the front of her carry-on and then dragged it back down to where she as waiting for me, smiling to myself.

My cell phone vibrated noisily from inside my jeans pocket. I blinked a few times into the blackness of the pillow and then tossed it aside feeling anxious and slightly oxygen deprived. I pulled the angry buzzing thing from my front pocket and quickly answered it.

It was Bella on a layover. After talking for a while, she had to go so she could board her next flight. I told her to please call me regardless of the time to let me know she got home safely.

I closed the phone and kept it in my palm. I didn't bother changing out of my jeans and my shoes were still on. It was sometime in the early hours of the morning and I felt disconnected from reality – like I had been simultaneously sleeping for the last several hours and laying wide awake staring into the blackness of my pillow as it slowly suffocated me with a mouth-watering scent. I squeezed the phone in my hands and rolled to my side to stare unblinkingly at the blank white wall until my eyes glossed over and I dozed off.

I slept though Bella's call.

After her visit, weeks passed without much distinction. I worked hard at my thesis, which was mercifully beginning to piece together nicely, and spent endless hours aiding my advisor at the university library as part of my course requirements. I ached for my family and my girlfriend more than I ever had in the past.

Every year that went by was increasingly difficult to be away from them. My parents were aging. It was more noticeable when I wasn't around for months at a time and then suddenly there was more grey around my father's sideburns and my mother was talking about selling the majority of her company's shares and retiring. My little sister was practically married and so grown up it killed me. My brother and his wife were having a fucking baby. Chief Swan was training some young rookies to take over for him when he finally stepped down. Every time I _did_ make it home he complained to me how senseless the new guys were and how the city of Forks was doomed…which was laughable.

Bella. She was so different than the little girl I had always known and somehow managed to hold onto whenever thinking about her. Every time we were able to spend time together it blew me away how mature we were growing. She had secured a internship at the Central, the primary weekly paper in Arizona, for the fall. She was leaning more toward creative writing lately, but the position was too promising to pass up considering the paper was part of a worldwide media conglomerate that could potentially network her anywhere.

Her eyes gleamed when she told me about it over our last visit and that was when it dawned on me how adult we had suddenly become. We were gradually building real lives that would one day merge into a single life together.

I had watched as she spoke excitedly, noticing the way the red in her hair glittered in the winter sun and her long fingers that she had finally stopped chewing on and looked polished like a real adult's. She was more and more beautiful every time I saw here, whether I hadn't seen her for a week or six months. Bella had a natural kind of beauty that looked just as gorgeous at dinner as when waking up in the morning. Her eyes sparkled with depth and facets that made other brown eyes envious. Her smile and easy laugh haunted me both while I was awake and asleep. I craved the sound in my ears and the sight of her in front of me.

Those were the thoughts mulling around in my head and in my heart, vying for attention after she left. It was no wonder that I was finally making some serious headway with my thesis. I threw myself into it with vigour so as to keep myself from dwelling on everything that I was lacking in New York. Or to keep myself from spontaneously buying a plane ticket, packing up my shit, and throwing in the towel.

Admittedly, despite my promise to Bella, I wasn't the best company after she left. I was depressed and lonely and whiny. My roommates finally had enough one Friday night. Along with a few other buddies, they ganged up on me and demanded that I hit a party with them and stop moping.

"Seriously, you are such a bellyaching little prick sometimes. I'm going to buy you a muumuu and a half dozen cats for your next birthday," someone remarked, shoving me in the shoulder from next to me in the back seat of the cab.

"And maybe a stack of crossword puzzle books."

"And some knitting needles."

Seriously, they wondered why I chose solitude sometimes.

My roommate spun around from the front seat to face us. "Aren't they called pins?" he asked. Three blank faces blinked slowly at him. "Ya know, knitting needles. They're called pins, not needles…technically."

I burst into laughter and shoved him until he turned around to face forward again. I turned to the others. "Fuck, and you assholes are worried about _me_?"

"At least we know Edward likes pussy and doesn't just sound like one."

We all clutched our sides which actually ached from laughter. My buddy in the front seat spun back to face us and rolled his eyes. "Shut up asshole," he addressed me. "My mom knits, so what? Don't be a dick just because I know shit that you don't."

We didn't break in our laughter until after he jostled me roughly until I mashed my lips together to restrain myself. As soon as he turned back around we all erupted again.

"They make gay jokes about knitting pins while they all giggle in the backseat like a bunch of fucking schoolgirls," he said to no one in particular, shaking his head.

I reached forward and roughed his hair up good naturedly so he wouldn't be too bent out of shape. I wrapped my arm around the headrest and pulled myself up as far as my seatbelt would allow, cramming my head between the seat and the window.

"See, aren't you glad you brought me along?" I asked still fighting some laughter. He pressed his elbow intro my forehead and pushed me back without looking. I sat back and smiled into the dark car glad I had come along.

We were headed to somewhere in The Village. The cab driver cursed under his breath about the illogical layout of the streets in Greenwich as he and my roommates, who both originated from the city, began arguing heatedly about the best way to bypass the evening Broadway traffic. Twenty minutes later we pulled up to a brick building on Barrow.

I had recently pulled a string of incredibly late nights working on my thesis. This, combined with several late night phone conversations with Bella that happily kept me occupied until the wee morning hours, meant that I was exhausted before the night even began.

When my buddies ran into the convenient store to grab some beers, I gave them twenty bucks for my share and then jogged across the street to the Starbucks. I needed to grab some coffee in the hopes of being able to stay awake long enough to convince my roommates that I had put in a good effort.

I stood in line and pulled my cell from my back pocket. I doubted I would have a chance to talk to Bella during the night, so I wanted to send her a quick text to check in.

_Being forced out of the apartment. Getting a coffee right now, but it will be replaced with a beer soon. I love you. _

It was still early her time. I knew she wouldn't have her phone on while she was finishing up the study group for her last class of the day, so I wasn't surprised when I didn't get an instant reply. I just smirked at the phone and then slid it back into my pocket.

When I looked up there was a girl with long dark hair and a purple jacket trying to be subtle about the way she was looking at me as she waited for her coffee. I pretended not to notice.

I ordered a tall dark roast. It was poured and handed to me without having to go wait at the other end of the bar. I went back outside and found my roommates leaning against the brick wall of a dirty alleyway pounding back beers.

"Jesus, you guys are like fucking fifteen year olds," I scoffed as they threw me a bottle. I caught it with my free hand and rolled my eyes, gesturing to the hot coffee in my other hand. The two didn't exactly mix well.

"Come on, were headed this way," someone said rounding the corner and nodding to the black metal gate at the front of an apartment building.

We were buzzed in immediately by someone who probably didn't even live there. As we climbed the stairwell to the forth floor we shoved and joked with each other, making typical crude male comments to one of my single buddies that we were going to try and get him laid tonight. He was fine with that.

The bass rattled the hollow stairwell and poured out into the hallway as the front door opened. There were a lot of guys I knew and even more that I didn't. Girls were draped all over the place and empty brown and green bottles were beginning to collect by the dozens on every available flat surface. We splintered off into our own little groups and began socializing.

Hours later, I was leaning against the kitchen counter talking to some guy whose name I didn't remember, but whom I recognised as sitting next to me the year before in a psych class. He was just finishing up his bachelors degree and applying for grad school. He was asking for pointers on the application process and what the Masters program was like. We drained several beers as we talked and joked.

At one point I noticed over his shoulder that the girl from Starbucks was sitting at the small wooden table beside the kitchen surrounded by her girlfriends. It was evident that they were college kids from one of the universities scattered around the area. There was an open book on the table that they were all huffing over. I pulled my eyes back to the guy in front of me and forgot about them.

A short time later I politely excused myself out of my conversation as my phone buzzed from my back pocket. I grabbed it and answered without checking the display, assuming it would be Bella.

"Hey," I greeted in a soft voice, jamming a finger in my opposite ear so I could hear against the loud music and voices.

It wasn't Bella.

"Uh…hello," my brother responded, the word coming out sounding like a question, obviously thrown off by my gentle "boyfriend voice" which was reserved specifically for Bella.

_Shit._

I laughed. "Oh hey, I thought it was someone else. What's up?"

"Who did you think it was?"

"It's not important," I lied. "What's going on?"

"Shut up, asshole. You thought I was a some chick, didn't you? You lonely this Friday night, bro? Looking for something to do?" he sneered in a highly suggestive way that I had to laugh at.

"No, I'm not bored. I'm in The Village at a house party and I can barely hear you so what do you want?" He knew I wasn't _really_ being a dick, it was just how brothers spoke to one another.

"Just checking in, I hadn't heard from you in a little while. Mom was just here and she was asking if I had talked to you lately, so I thought I'd call and see what you're up to."

I grunted a little noise that indicated I understood.

"So, you're at a house party in New York City? I'm jealous."

I laughed at him and rolled my eyes, even if he couldn't see me.

"On the other hand, I'm sitting here doing nothing. I just handed over my Visa card to Rose so her and mom could buy the most expensive fucking crib known to man. Later were going to a movie and I don't even get a say about which one we go see. Fuck…I want _your_ life, you jackass."

"Emmett, you're ridiculous. I rode in a cab with three smelly dudes…two of which I will be going home with to probably finish off the night by playing X-Box . My life isn't that exciting," I laughed.

"Yeah right."

At that point a very drunk and sloppy roommate flung his arm around me and not so discreetly nodded toward the kitchen table. "Holy shit bro. Those girls are hot and that dark-haired one has been eye-fucking the shit out of for the last hour. Let's go try and get in on that?" He slapped me across the chest with his other hand while still leaning against me.

I shrugged him off as my brother roared with laughter on the other end. "Yeah not that different at all. I'm installing a car seat as we speak," he muttered more to himself than anything.

I ignored him and risked a glance in the direction my buddy was drooling in. Without trying to, I made eye-contact with the girl from Starbucks, who had apparently left her purple jacket somewhere and was now in a black tank top. She smiled and then looked back to her girlfriends and giggled.

_Shit._

"See!" the idiot on my shoulder slurred into my ear. "She's practically fucking begging you to go over there and talk to her. Her friends are hot. Let's go." He pulled on my arm.

"Hang on. Dude. Okay…stop." Each sentence was directed at both guys. Emmett needed to stop laughing and my roommate needed to stop pulling on me. They were both such oafs it was almost comical.

"Bro, go get laid, I'm sure you need it. I'll talk to you some other time," Emmett said, clearly amused to no end.

I pulled the phone from my ear and glared at it for a second then replaced it. "Okay, first of all, fuck you both," I said into the receiver but with a sharp look at my buddy. "Secondly, I get laid plenty, thank you very much, Emmett."

"Yeah yeah, we all know. You had like a fucking amazing-sex marathon a while back," my buddy slurred so close to me that Emmett heard him perfectly. "I on the other hand could use…" His sentence trailed off as he stared pointedly at the table of girls.

"Nice, bro. Fuck off then. Go be single. I'll be sure to enjoy my romantic fucking comedy tonight with my hormonal, never-in-the-mood-anymore pregnant wife," Em joked, laughing loudly. I could practically picture him wedged onto the backseat of Rosalie's BMW wrestling with car seat straps, the phone smashed between his ear and his shoulder, as he shook with laughter.

"Bye," I sneered back and flipped the phone shut.

I directed my attention to the annoying fucker still tugging at my arm like a toddler. "Are fucking retarded? That girl _has _been eyeing me all night all flirty and annoying. I can't go over there with you. Go get someone else to play wing man. That shit's not safe for me."

"Aw, c'mon! I'm not saying you have to stick your dick in her. Just come over with me and say hi. Then after a few minutes you can slink off and go confess your sins to Bella," he muttered as our feet began moving toward the table. I was sure I heard him add something about being pussy-whipped, which I wasn't going to dispute.

I shrugged him off of me as we approached the table and glared at him as we made our way through the awkward introductions. There were four girls. Purple Jacket had some long Italian-sounding name that was pretty but I forgot it immediately.

I was polite but not all that interested in anything that was being said. While my buddy laid it on thick, I finished off my beer and excused myself to grab another. As I closed the fridge door Purple Jacket was leaned casually against the counter, twirling her hair and batting her eyelashes at me.

I was half-drunk and rapidly approaching completely-drunk. My head lolled a little to the side as I regarded her behaviour. She had on tight jeans and black boots that covered them up to her knees. Committed or not, I could still appreciate that she was quite attractive. However, she may have misinterpreted the way I looked at her, because a huge smile spread across her face.

"Let me guess…Columbia, right?" she deduced, making a show of studying me.

I smiled and looked down at myself. I wasn't sure what it was about me that made her draw that conclusion. I was in dark jeans that came from who knows where because my little sister bought them for me years ago, and an olive button down with the sleeves rolled and shoved up over my forearms, the white ring of my undershirt slightly visible. However, technically the girl was accurate. Maybe it was my shoes. Admittedly, they were quite expensive.

Seeing me scowl and look myself over she laughed and dropped the piece of hair she was playing with. "You just strike me as the smart, serious type, that's all I meant. You definitely don't remind me of the typical NYU ruffians I normally associate with," she explained jokingly. "Are you? Smart I mean?"

I shrugged. "You might be right on all accounts," I replied noncommittally, twisting off the bottle cap and pinging it into the sink behind her where there was a already a growing collection.

"I knew it. I'm very good at reading people," she said beaming, clearly quite proud of her accuracy. "And you're smart?"

I shrugged again.

"Well, what are you studying?" she asked.

"I'm in the first year of my Masters in psychology."

"Wow. So I'll take that as a yes. Good, because it just so happens, Edward, that I could use the help of someone just like you." It didn't slip my attention that she remembered my name. Red flags started waving at me from the distance. Not good.

"Oh?"

"Yup," she replied in a chipper tone, popping the _P_ on the word and scooting around me to go back toward the kitchen table.

She did that thing that girls always do in bars and clubs, where as they pass between guys they lay their palm against our chest. They push through the crowd and then trail their fingers against us, like it's perfectly acceptable to touch total strangers that intimately just because they are attractive and trying to squeeze by. I'd like to see that shit fly if the roles were reversed. Not a chance.

I swallowed hard and didn't move. I watched as she wiggled between my single buddy and the three girls he was having no problem entertaining and grabbed the book off the table. She ducked back between them and lay the item on the side of the bar opposite me. Her big black eyes looked up to meet mine expectantly. I realised she expected me to be right behind her and not frozen in place still leaning against the refrigerator.

She raised both brows at me in silent question just as some other girl asked me kindly to move so she could get at the fridge. I apologised to her and went to stand next to Purple Jacket, who was regarding me with a careful expression.

I took a long pull from my beer and a deep breath, exhaling slowly after I swallowed, and then peered over her should at the book. It was something scientific, that much was instantly obvious.

I meet her eyes which were pretty close to mine as we both leaned over the book. I arched one brow back at her. I sat my beer down, licked my lips, and wrapped my fingers around the front half of the book, flipping it to the cover to read it.

_Applied Kinesiology: Principles and Practice. _ I nodded at the book and then dropped the pages that were in my hand so that it was back open at the spot where she had it.

"Yeah, confession time: I'm only a second year. I probably should have waited to take this advanced level course until next year or something, but I thought, how hard can it be, right? Turns out, it can be pretty damn hard," she laughed but sounded nervous. I was suddenly incredibly sorry for her and grateful that I never really had to do the 'dating' or 'flirting' thing. Poor girl. But how was I supposed to randomly tell her not to waste her time or her flirty pouts on me.

_Yes, kinesiology can be pretty complex. _

_I have a girlfriend._

I'd sound like an egotistical douche.

So I smiled back at her and agreed. "Yeah I've taken a several Kinesiology courses. It can be complicated, but since it's science it's really just about memorising reactions and understanding them, and then applying them whenever possible. It isn't fluid like the arts, so once you get it, you get it. What's your question?"

I looked down at the book and scanned the page. She was apparently in the section of the book that discussed the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system – something I happened to know a lot about. It was intricately connected to the brain's synapses and mental awareness which was all right up my alley.

We spent more than an hour discussing the text and the course. She pulled some papers from the back of the book and I grabbed a pencil and drew a few simple diagrams and watched as she read and reread the chapter trying to understand it. She kept referring to my silly drawings and I shook my head and laughed at her, finishing my beer and then stealing my buddy's fresh bottle as he walked by with his arm around two of Purple Jacket's friends. He shot me a weary look that I suspected had little to do with my theft and more to do with the way the girl next to me kept looking up from under her lashes. No fucking wonder she had to keep rereading the text. She was easily distracted

She finally closed the book loudly and shook her head. "Maybe I should switch my major to Philosophy," she grumbled.

I nearly shot beer out of my nose I laughed so hard. I wiped my lower lip with the back of my hand and shook my head at her. She looked highly amused by my display.

"Why? So you can sit around and ponder why you are unemployed?" I joked. "Stick with this…you'll be fine. Maybe just stop trying to memorise chemical and electrical signal paths over Heineken's." I nodded at the beer dangling from her fingertips at her side.

"Cute," she sneered pretending to glower at me. I wasn't sure if she was referencing my joke or me. The red flags got closer and waved more frantically.

Over all the years Bella and I had been together, I had politely refused my fair share of advances. But they were usually at a bar with overly aggressive drunken women. Or at a party in Washington and Bella was somewhere in the room giggling at my awkward predicament.

This was very different. This was a sweet young girl. In an alternate life I would have liked to get to know her better. She was completely and obviously putting herself out there to me. I felt like an asshole from both angles.

She reached out and delicately fingered the exposed bottom button on my shirt, then looked up at me and smiled. She looked like she was going to say something but I cut her off by taking a step backward and looking down, breaking our gaze.

I grabbed my cell from my back pocket and checked the time. Regardless of what it said, I knew it was time to go.

"You gotta go?" she asked and then took a slow drink from her bottle trying not to make eye contact with me.

I twisted my features up and nodded slowly in a very nondescript kind of way, trying, yet again, to not be a total dick. At least I was able to help her with her homework.

"Do you live around here?" she asked and then her eyes widened in horror. She laughed uncomfortably. "Okay…that sounds like I'm trying to invite myself back to your place. That's totally not what I meant, I swear. Well…I mean, I wasn't, but, you know…" Her eyes smouldered and she took a tiny step toward me.

"Yeah…hey. I…" I shook my head and narrowed my gaze her, cutting her off before she made an even bigger ass out of herself. "I..." I apparently wasn't able to finish a sentence.

She nodded and rolled her eyes. "Oh. I get it. It's fine."

_Shit. _Fucking women.

"No, it's just… It's not…" I growled in frustration and flipped the phone around that was in my palm. She looked at the background picture that effectively got off the hook easily without actually having to finish my awkward explanation.

Bella snapped the picture of us when we were in the back of the carriage ride through Central Park the first day of our Valentine's extravaganza. My arm was around her and her head was nestled under my chin. The green trees where visible in the background and our cheeks were flushed. My lips were pressed softly to the top of her head, my eyes closed, while she smirked and looked up at me. It was a disgustingly sweet picture of us and I cherished it.

"Ohhh…got it. That's a cute picture. She is really pretty," she said, nodding at the phone and then looking up to me. "Well, I'm not surprised. Smart and pretty with that nice of shoes…you were bound to be either gay or taken. No big deal." She laughed but it was tight sounding and I was pretty sure it was a slightly bigger deal than she was letting on.

Again, I was immensely thankful that I never had to play that asinine game of the single-people world. Not to mention that I didn't have to do it because I already had a girl as amazing as Bella.

I glanced down at the picture on the screen and could almost smell her hair as I buried my nose against her. I smiled nostalgically at the picture then slid the cell into my back pocket again.

"What's her name?" She was just making polite conversation by that point as we slowly transitioned out of the uncomfortable revelation.

"Isabella."

"That's pretty." Her eyes seemed focused on something in between us that wasn't really there. A memory or dream or something. "Well, thanks for the help, maybe if I keep rereading it and studying these cartoons I'll finally catch on," she joked as she waved my diagrams in the air.

"Hey." I swiped the paper from her hand. "These are quality diagrams thank you very much. But if you don't need them…" I pretended to fold up the paper up and stick it in my front pocket.

She grabbed it back and glared at me. "Thank you, Edward," she said, grabbing her book off the counter. "Maybe I'll see you around or something."

I nodded, even though I doubted I would ever see her again. "Good luck, and please don't change your major to Philosophy."

We both laughed and she pushed her way through the crowd at the kitchen entrance. It was after two AM and I was pretty drunk, tired, and beyond ready to go home and crawl sloppily into my lonely little bed that no longer smelled like Bella.

I found my roommates, both of which were preoccupied with girls, one of whom I recognised as the girl from the bar by our apartment that Bella had helped wrap the cookies for. Apparently the gesture worked because she was back and hanging on my buddy's arm. I waved good-bye to them and nodded toward the door indicating that I was leaving.

No sooner was I in the cab than I was dialling Bella's number. She answered on the second ring.

"Hello?" She was in the middle of a yawn.

"Hey, baby."

"Hey, did you get my texts?" she asked. She sounded incredibly tired.

"Shit, no, sorry. It was really loud in there. Did I wake you up?"

"No. I'm at the kitchen table trying in vain to be creative. I'm working on my final project for my Literary Criticism and Theory class. I have the bare bones written down, but I'm going through it and trying to colour it up a bit, ya know? I need to make it mine somehow. But I think I'm too tired to be productive right now. I just keep staring at the screen until the words blur together and my eyes start watering." She sighed heavily.

I pictured her leaning her head against her hand, the phone smashed between her palm and her ear as she slumped over the kitchen table and pouted. I would bet money that she was in her favourite pair of black sweat pants and had her left foot up on the chair next to her, bouncing her leg wildly without realising she was doing it. I wondered if her hair was pulled back into a ponytail or if it spilled down her back. The ache in my chest was all-consuming.

"Dammit, Bella. I would give anything to be sitting at the stupid yellow table with you helping you with your homework," I murmured into the phone with my eyes squeezed tight.

Bella laughed. She couldn't appreciate without my explanation what prompted me to say such a thing. "Well, Edward, if it's any consolation to you…I love you dearly but you are not all that expert at the written word. I doubt you would be very helpful. But I _would_ give anything to have you sitting her next to me trying. If nothing else it would be thoroughly entertaining." She was still giggling. Her voice was sweet and she was beautiful, even if I couldn't see her.

"I love you, Isabella." I rarely used her full name. It caught her attention.

"I love you too, Edward. Are you okay? Are you home now? It sounds so quiet." Her tone was worried.

"I'm fine. I'm just a little drunk and missing you, that's all," I responded truthfully.

"I always miss you, Edward, drunk or not. I think you should come visit. Right now preferably." Her tone was still light, trying to combat mine.

I sighed dramatically into the receiver. "Don't tempt me. I'm in a cab on my way home. The guys are still back at the party pawing over some girls. I could easily redirect this car and go for a quick plane ride and some sunshine," I whined , staring out into the black rain beyond the cold glass beside me.

"Oh, well then I'm afraid you would be sorely disappointed. It's actually been raining here the last few days. Can you believe that? Everyone's freaking out…it's kind of funny. Sorry to ruin your plans."

"Well then…I guess I could just do the plane ride and then a bunch of hot sex to make up for the lack of sun." My words were slurring. It was one of those times that I was getting drunker the longer I sat there doing nothing. I really wanted to get home and pass out as a pathetic and inadequate alternative to wrapping my arms around Bella while seated at her kitchen table watching her pour over her essay.

"Go to bed, baby. I'll call you in the morning. Or, on second thought, the afternoon." She was giggling at me and my obvious intoxication. I would have said something witty back…but I couldn't think of anything. "Oh, and you should call your mom. That was what my texts were about. I spoke to her tonight and she was wondering if you were planning on going home next weekend."

I scrubbed my palms over my face. I knew without asking that Bella would definitely not be going home. Neither was I.

"No, I can't. It's just impossible."

* * *

Hmmm...

*scratches head*

And before you rant me...I think Ed handled that pretty well...yes?

No? Tough crowd. *shrugs*

The next chapter will be posted as usual on Thursdays. It comes with a warning, I apologise ahead of time.

(The warning has nothing to do with ExB's relationship. They are as solid as solid gets...trust. The chapter is just sad.)

I love you.

Air

~xox~


	26. Reverence

**Warning: longest author's note in history just below...mah bad.**

Well.

I think it's safe to say that I learned _my _lesson, yes?

I am deeply sorry for any undue stress over the "warning" that I gave at the end of the last chapter.

I think I had everyone panicking over everything from the baby to Esme and Carlisle's health to Edward turning into a cheating douchebag

(hai, have you read the same story as me...just wondering?)

I am sorry. I will never be so careless with the word "warning" again. Here is the disclaimer I posted in my emergency author's note:

_This is a story about devotion. Honest and simple devotion. The kind that burns bright and inspires. Not the kind that would ever hurt or disgrace the other. _

_I forget sometimes that not everyone knows what I know. Have faith. These two will never let you down._

_This is a love story. Of the purest kind._

_My utmost and sincere apologies, I am literally weeping as I type this. I would never intentionally lead you astray._

So there_._

*sticks tongue out*

Now...with all that said...here it is.

Oh, and I love all of you. You have no idea how much you inspire me. Thank you!

Air

xox

* * *

"Aw, baby, of course I understand. It is a long way to travel for just the weekend." My mother's tone, while soft and gentle as always, held a trace amount of disappointment and it crushed me.

"Mom, believe me, I wish that I could," I tried to console her.

"Oh, we aren't doing anything that extravagant. Although Rose _is_ throwing a rather large celebration for herself…with your sister's help of course. But that's it, you won't be missing much – just a bunch of girl-talk and squeals. Though I do wish I could see you, I miss you, Edward." There was a soft sigh on the other end of the receiver and my heart literally clenched and my face winced.

My mother was the queen of inadvertent guilt. She would never, ever in a million years _try _to make one of her children feel bad for focusing so intently on their studies – or for anything really, she just wasn't that type of mother. However, she was so damn sweet and compassionate that it somehow always made us feel slightly worse.

"I love you, mom. I wish I could come but I just can't, there's no way. I have to hand in the next chunk of my thesis by the end of the month for evaluation and then do any adjustments before the summer break. Not to mention that I have a shitload of preliminary marking to do for the TA position that I'm in and it all has to be done like _now_. I'm so stressed I am losing my mind," I whined into the receiver while tugging wildly at my hair.

I was seated cross-legged on the floor in front of the door to my apartment, halfway into the living room area and halfway in the kitchen. When I had finally kicked in the piece of shit door as it jammed for the umpteenth time on the deadbolt, with my cell sandwiched between my ear and my shoulder, my bag slipped and spilled onto the floor. I sat down to reorganize the papers that we everywhere while finishing up my conversation with my mom.

A small yet firm voice cleared dramatically. I barely registered it because as I was stacking loose papers something random caught my eye and I had an epiphany – it was _that _special little something that Bella was always trying to explain to me that all writing assignments need in order for them to be exciting and original. I had an idea and my mind ran with it until I realised my mother had made that throat-clearing noise for the third time and I was ignoring her rudely.

"Oh shit, sorry, mom. What?"

She gasped even louder until I realised it was an admonishment for my language, having slipped and sworn for a second. I laughed heartily as I realised my mistake.

"Sorry mom. I'll watch my mouth, I promise. Hey I love you, but I kinda have to go. I just had this idea about my thesis and I wanna power up my laptop and get it all typed before I lose it," I explained while gathering the papers and folders and standing up.

Leaving the bag and the unnecessary spilt items splayed out in the entryway, I sped to my room and plugged in my power cord. I booted up my laptop as I kissed my mother good-bye over the phone and told her for what was probably the twelfth time that week that I was incredibly sorry I was not going to be able to come home for the weekend. I also promised to call Rosalie and give her my best wishes.

I typed away furiously after that, sitting on the floor of my room leaning against the foot of my bed because I had yet to invest in a desk for my bedroom in New York. Given that I had been there for four years I wondered if I ever was going to make that purchase if I hadn't already.

My ass was falling asleep and my neck was fucking killing me from being hunched over the keyboard in my lap for so many hours straight, typing furiously. I had long since lost track of what time it was or if anyone else had come home after class since I arrived. It was Friday though, so there was a good chance my roommates were out living it up somewhere and I wouldn't see them for a few days. Or perhaps they had gone home for the weekend. I really had no clue.

Only as I realised that my cell phone, which was on vibrate, was buzzing across the hardwood floor did I break my gaze from my screen. I blinked a few times and growled under my breath. I was a little perturbed at being drawn away from the stride which I had finally found, it had been a while since the words flowed so freely from my mind to the screen.

As I looked up bleary-eyed and slightly dizzy from staring at the glowing text for way-too-fucking-many hours, I realised that the room around me had grown dark. As I reached for my phone something gnawed at me, retrieving something from the periphery of my consciousness – I had a feeling that my cell had been scooting noisily around the room vibrating against the wooden floor for a long time, and that I was only just noticing it.

I scooped it up, glancing at the display indicating it was Alice just before I flipped it open and greeted her.

"Hey, I can't really talk right now I'm kinda in the mid…"

"Jesus fucking Christ, Edward Anthony, it's about goddamn time! I have been calling you straight for over forty-five fucking minutes!"

Alice _never _said the F-word.

"Alice?"

Panic. It was instinctual. The very minute that I heard the frantic voice on the other end as Alice ripped me a new one, tossing around the F-word like she was a trucker, I knew that something was horribly wrong. A great many thoughts flew through my mind like rockets in that moment. I am ashamed to admit that while I thought of everything from my mother being hurt to something being wrong with Rosalie and Emmett's baby, I did not anticipate the next words out of her mouth.

If I live for an eternity I will forever regret that I wasn't more attentive in the weeks leading up to this weekend. I was so lost in my thesis and my TA studies that every conversation was fleeting. It was my fault. I should have known. I should have seen it coming. I should have been there. Instead…I was in New York.

"It's Bella."

My heart sank.

From there Alice , began rambling really fast and really incoherently.

The sense of dread that had been bubbling inside my chest exploded and my world became a very simple and very black place. I saw nothing. I heard nothing but my baby sister's voice in my ear. I thought of nothing but delicate pale skin and beautifully deep brown eyes. And urgency. Such a huge fucking jolt of urgency that it rippled through my body and caused both my fingers and my voice to tremble.

"Alice, please, you have to slow the fuck down. _What_ happened?"

As I listened I was already throwing shit around my room gathering my passport, wallet, and keys while fighting to find a matching pair of runners. I blurred out of my bedroom and through my front door not even bothering to lock it. I had no idea if anyone else was home, but it was the least of my concerns.

"Alice," I cried into the phone, projecting all the agony and helplessness I felt at being so mother-fucking far away onto my poor baby sister, who for all intents and purposes, was just as helpless as I was.

"Get your ass on a plane now, Edward!"

"I'm already in a cab."

Five hours and forty-seven minutes later, Alice was firing down HWY 101 after meeting me at the Callum County airport. It was still over an hours drive into Forks, although at the rate Alice was going, it would be significantly less – which I was eternally grateful for. She had borrowed Jasper's mother's Porsche.

We rode in relative silence as we sped along the abandoned coastal highway. There was not another soul in sight given that it was a quarter to four in the morning. Not that the roads around Forks were all that occupied regardless of the time of day.

It wasn't long before Alice took the cut off the highway that led us into the residential area of the city. I was grateful that the turnoff was more of a slight bend in the road, considering she had yet to let the needle dip below ninety mph. The hard right onto K Street was another story. As the tires squealed and the car rebelled, shaking a bit, I looked over at her and glared.

"Shut it, Edward," she growled without looking to me. "You want to get there as fast as humanly possible, right?" I grunted and gripped my holy-shit handle. She cranked to a stop at the curb of Charlie's house just as he threw open the front door and shook his head at the ferocity of our approach.

"Besides, this car was meant to be driven like this," Alice added, petting the dashboard and cooing at the yellow beast.

I glowered at her even if she wouldn't see it and threw open my door. As I slammed it shut I growled back, "Not in Forks."

The quiet whir of the passenger window rolling down as I jogged up the front walk and I looked back at the car. Alice leaned over the seats and called after me. "Take care of her, Edward. Call me when you get chance, everyone's really worried about her. Oh…and you're welcome." She smiled sweetly and bat her eyes lashes.

"Thanks, Allie." I nodded and smiled at her then turned back to Charlie. He had an eyebrow raised at me and his arms crossed firmly across his chest.

"You came from New York?" he asked.

I nodded once and climbed up the porch steps pushing past him. Charlie grumbled something that I couldn't make out, but since he was following me I felt the need to elaborate.

"I would have been here before if I knew she was coming."

"Yeah, well…no one knew she was coming, believe me," he grumbled.

"_I_ should have known," I spat back with venom, angry at myself, not him. I tore up the stairs like my life depended on it, because really, it did.

As I ran I braced myself for the train wreck I was about to face. A deep breath tried steeled my nerves so I could be the emotional rock that she was going to need me to be for her. It was what I did at times like this. It always had been.

My sister's words scampered across my mind as I approached the top of the stairs. Alice had filled me in on the very little that she knew as we sped toward Forks.

"_Okay," Alice took a deep breath as I ran with all my might across the airport parking lot and launched myself into the car. "So dad got a call from Charlie just before I called you, saying that Bella was home. Apparently, he heard her key in the lock and when he raised to open the door and see what the hell was going on he was greeted with Bella and her big doe eyes filled with tears. She wrapped her arms around him sobbing and then went upstairs in a total daze, refusing to answer poor Charlie as he called up after her. She locked herself in her room. We have all tried and none of us can get her to even respond. _

"_Edward…it's been over ten hours…what the hell? I literally sat in my car outside Charlie's for over four hours after talking to you, waiting for Charlie to tell me that she re-emerged, but nothing..."_

"_Fuck, Alice."_

"_I know," my sister whispered._

"_She never goes home," I observed, as if that fucking made a difference – clearly she went home this time._

_It was Saturday morning. Tomorrow was Mother's Day._

The door to Bella's childhood bedroom was just to the left at the top of the stairs. I could hear an old Billy Holiday song wafting out from behind the closed door. My heart sank. Renée loved Billy Holiday. She used to hum her tunes absentmindedly all the time and she sang Bella to sleep with her words when she was a little girl.

_Fuck, this is going to be bad. _I mentally prepared myself for the onslaught.

I could not break down at seeing Bella in such pain. I had be strong for her, she was going to need it. I blew out a shaky breath, grabbed the door handle gently and turned.

It didn't give. The door was still locked_. _

"Shit," I muttered under my breath.

A heavy voice cleared behind me. I spun around to find Charlie leaning against the opposite wall, one arm still crossed over his chest, the other dangling some small metal contraption between us. It looked like a mathematical compass or something. I shook my head lightly, not understanding.

He pushed me aside and slid the contraption into the slot between the door and the jamb. It made a tiny clicking sound and he looked back at me.

"I would never breech her privacy like that on my own. But the crying stopped about two hours ago and I'm pretty sure she's asleep, so…" He shrugged stiffly, looking torn and distraught. I was certain her hadn't had any sleep yet. "Besides, it's _you,_ and she would want you in there with her."

Obviously uncomfortable with the exchange, he placed his palm against my shoulder and squeezed once before trekking down the hallway to his own bedroom. I felt better knowing that at least he would be able to catch some sleep now, knowing that I was there to care for Bella.

I mumbled a thanks and pushed open the door.

Just as I walked in, the track changed to the modern "Bent Remix" of Speak Low. The room filled with soulful cadences and electronic synthesizers as Billie's smooth voice stretched out and delicately caressed everything it could reach. I scanned the entire room quickly, taking inventory of the destruction around me. My breath caught as I settled on Bella's bare little feet and the lower half of her legs peeking out from the closet doors.

I ran to her in a panic. I knew Bella would never physically hurt herself, not in a million years, but I was also too aware that she was not beyond pushing herself to the point where her inner pain seeped to the outside and _did _take its physical toll.

But Charlie was right, she was just out cold. She looked more broken and spent than I had seen her in a long time. He face, normally a beautiful pale shade of perfect porcelain, was red and splotchy with streaks of black make-up down her cheeks. Her hair was wild and even in her sleep her little hands clenched an old, rolled up notebook so tightly that her knuckles were strained and white. Her head was pillowed into her bent arm and her breathing was erratic in hitches and spurts as her body struggled to recover even after being asleep for hours.

My heart was in my throat. I knew from experience there was nothing I could do to alleviate her pain except just be there. She always tried to be an island when it came to this particular brand of pain. Yet she always ended up attaching herself to me and inevitably surrendering a fair share of the burden for me to help carry as I rescued her from herself. Nothing I ever did or said over the years had been able to prevent it. All I could do was be there in the end. And she knew I always would be. I would always find a way to her when she needed me. There was nothing in the universe more important. _Nothing_.

And so I was there.

I crouched to my knees and slowly crawled over to her. The old white concert tee she wore was soaked with gray streaks and splotches of leaked tears. I pushed some things carefully aside and leaned up against the back wall of the closet, then wrapped my arms around Bella and pulled her to me. Her body was rigid, not at all the peaceful relaxation it should have been in such a deep sleep. I knew that wherever she was in her mind, it was not a pleasant place, it was a place of sorrow.

I settled her on her side between my bent knees, laying her head against my chest, and stroked her hair where it lay down her back. I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes, humming to her along with the music – which had shifted into one of Billie's more relaxing numbers.

I glanced around what portions of the room I could see from where I was huddled in the back of the closet. There were shoe boxes scattered everywhere, their contents spilled all around the floors of the room, on the bed, and across the small work desk. Pictures, scraps of paper, and small trinkets that had long since been carefully stowed were once again seeing the light of day. There was a small pile of crunched up black plastic on the floor by her nightstand that looked like it had once been an alarm clock and I wondered how it met its death.

It was as I scanned Bella's little fists for any cuts or damage that I saw and recognised the curled notebook she was clenching in her hand. It was the last one in a series of eight journals that had been instructed to be given to Bella after her mother passed away. They were Renée's private journals that she had been writing since she was a teenager. They documented everything from her high school experiences, to meeting and falling in love with Charlie, to the birth and raising of their only child.

The final journal was the only on I had read from cover to cover. It was a divesting documentation of her struggles with cancer and her fears and heartbreak over knowing she was losing the fight and would soon be leaving her family…specifically…her cherished daughter. There were pages and pages of letters from Renée to Bella, highlighting all of her hopes and dreams for her.

It was by far the most painful collection of words I had ever read.

Initially, I had been furious when I found out about the journals. They were given to Bella just after her sixteenth birthday, as per Renée's instructions. I thought it was cruel and unnecessary to trudge up such intensely painful wounds in such a small and vulnerable girl. As Bella told me what was in the journals I remember cursing Renée silently.

Upon returning home much later that night, after comforting a bawling Bella, I completely lost my shit on my parents when they asked me how she was holding up. I flipped out, smashed my fists into anything within reach, screaming and demonstrating my thorough knowledge of more swear words than my parents probably knew existed. I finally exhausted myself and with a final kick to the kitchen door, which left a hole where my foot landed, I stomped up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door – which I also kicked for good measure.

My parents, being the truly amazing people that they are, didn't hold any of it against me. They gave me the remainder of the evening to calm down until finally my mother entered my room after knocking softly and waiting patiently until I gruffed out a permission to enter. She found me curled up on the corner of the couch at the back of my room and she quietly joined me.

She held me and stroked my hair, gently rocking me back and forth while she tried to explain a differing viewpoint to the journals, one that perhaps I had yet to realise. Given that Renée had been her best friend, she of course not only knew of the journals existence but also had an intimate knowledge of the words that were written in them.

It turned out that my mother had counselled and reassured her friend as she wrote what would end up being her parting words to her daughter. She coaxed her through the heartache and the tears as her body failed and her heart wept.

It took me a long time, but eventually I came to appreciate the books for what they were. An inanimate parenting tool that was all a dying woman had left to offer her daughter. Renée wrote words of wisdom and tips from one woman to another. She wrote hopes and perspective that not only a mother had to offer, but especially a _dying _mother.

It was all she could give her. She would never be there to curl her hair before a dance or squeal with her after her first kiss. She would not insist upon a hundred and fifty photo on prom night, or grad night, or on her first day of university. She would not weep at her wedding or know her grandchildren. Those words, written with a weak hand in ink that was smeared with tear drops in some places…that was all she had to give.

Bella had been so young when Renée died that it was feasible she would slowly forget things about her. Memories would fade and slowly she would forget the passion and the fierceness with which she cherished Bella. Now, with the words and promises written forever into those notebooks, Bella would never forget how much Renée loved her and just how big her dreams were for her. She could read all about how excited she was throughout her pregnancy, all the dreams she had for her as she stood over her cradle and watched her sleep as an infant, and all the aspirations she laid out for her in her final days, praying for Bella to have a life that she loved, filled with all the people and things that would make her the most happy.

Bella now cherished the journals, even if she stored them at her father's house and barely ever dug them up because of how difficult they were to read. She would never forget how much hope and faith her mother had for her future, even if she was not there to tell her herself every day the way my own mother was. Yes…it took time…but I eventually appreciated the prudence behind the gift of journals.

It was no coincidence that Bella's first entry in her own series of journals was six days after she was bequeathed the box of Renée's. Journals that she had slowly began to abandon until she recently received a lovely leather-bound notebook with a frayed rusty ribbon bookmark as a Christmas gift.

I rubbed at my tired eyes with my free hand while I held Bella in my arms. I began nodding off as I sat there humming, trailing my fingertips through her hair and up and down her spine and her mostly bare arms, trying with everything I had to bring her some peace in her state of unrest.

The weight was seeping into my own bones. A cloud of sleep circled around my head and it bowed forward to rest against the top of Bella's and I drifted. But then Bella stirred. She groaned and lifted off of me with a small hand pushing against my chest.

I sniffed and scrubbed at my eyes and then slowly blinked them open and settled on her. She had dark purple welts beneath her incredibly puffy eyes. They were so inflamed from delivering so many tears that they were nearly swelled shut. Her eyeballs were bloodshot, the red circling her irises in a vibrant shade that faded out as it spider webbed throughout the rest of her eye. They were trained on me, a look of sleepy confusion on her face as she rubbed her forehead and pushed her hair back off her shoulders.

She sighed and lay back against me, letting me hold tight, the faint glow from the desk lamp was the only lighting in the room. It just barely reached us in a muted dimness where we were tucked away in the back of the closet.

I brushed the rest of her hair back off her forehead and pressed my lips gently to the skin there.

"Edward," she groaned. It sounded like a chastisement, which confused me.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming home?" I whispered down to her.

She sat back up onto her knees, still settled in between my legs. She looked up at me with her feeble red eyes and blotchy skin and I immediately wanted her to be cradled in my arms and protected again, not a foot away glowering at me. She sat the journal that she was still clutching onto the floor beside her and looked back up at me. She looked cross underneath all the evident pain and exhaustion.

"What?" I asked.

She raised her eyebrows, widened her eyes, and gestured toward me with a wave of her hand in a distinct indication that it should be obvious. It was very much a gesture she had learned from Charlie. Regardless, I still didn't get what was so obvious.

"You should have told me you were coming, Bella." I whispered, stroking her cheek with the back of my fingers, trying in vain to pull her back to my chest.

"Spur of the moment," she offered in a hoarse whisper, stubbornly refusing to lie back down against me.

"You could have called me at some point. I had to hear that you were locked in your room bawling from Alice."

"I know…I'm sorry." Her head bent and she fiddled with the hem of her tee shirt. I cupped her face and lifted it to look at me, my thumbs rubbing against her cheekbones.

"Don't be sorry, baby, I just wish I knew. You should have told me."

I leaned in and placed a soft whisper of a kiss near the corner of her mouth, then leaned back out to study her again. I carefully watched her every breath, gauging for myself just how close to the cliff's edge she was balancing. I needed to make sure that when she finally slipped over the side I was waiting at the bottom to catch her.

"You would have come, Edward" she ground out, her throat scratching and her words hitching as she tried to force sound out of the overworked vocal chords that had been sobbed raw.

"Absolutely."

Obviously. I would have defied the fucking time-space continuum to see to it I was there first and waiting for her if I had any idea that she was planning on coming.

"Exactly," she sighed, clearly tired and exasperated with me.

I hated that I was adding to her emotional turmoil, but I didn't understand her aversion to me being there. While her words argued one point, the soft way her body melted into mine as she finally allowed me to envelop her again, argued a drastically different story. She was glad I was there. She needed me.

"Edward, I know how demanding your thesis is. You can't afford to take any time away from your work, not even on weekends. You really shouldn't have come, I'll be fine eventually. I know you know that." Her words were quiet, yet determined, as they muffled against my jacket.

I was still holding her precious head in my palms, smoothing her hair away from her cheeks. I tightened my grip to reinforce the words that I was about to say.

"There is no where else I would rather be. Nothing is more important, Isabella Ever. Do you hear me? _Nothing._" I pushed the words out through clenched teeth. I wasn't angry with her, and she knew that, it was just that I had to make sure she understood how important she was to me – which she also knew. She was just too self-sacrificing and stubborn for her own good sometimes.

She should have told me.

But I was there now and I could help her. I gently moved her off of my lap and crawled out from the back of the closet. I held her hand inside mine, forcing her to crawl behind me until we could stand. I stood and stretched as joints popped and my back ached from sitting on the hard floor for so long. My ass was asleep again.

Bella groaned and rubbed the back of her neck. I let go of her other hand and shrugged out of my leather jacket that I hadn't had the chance to shed yet. I kicked off my sneakers and then resumed holding her hand. I led her to her bed, gently pushed aside piles of photographs to clear a spot for us, and then pulled her up to the bed with me. I sat against the wall and she curled into me in the familiar spot that was made to fit her body perfectly.

I rubbed her neck for her as she rifled through the photographs and we reminisced about each one that was within arms reach. We talked and she cried and even laughed a little until she finally sighed heavily, signalling that she was done. I reached over and turned off the lamp. We settled down into the pillows and pulled the dishevelled comforter out from under our legs and I tucked it around Bella's shoulders. She yawned and nodded, silently agreeing that she needed some sleep. I kissed her hair and resumed humming the gentle, lilting lyrics of Bye-Bye Blackbird. It wasn't long before she was out cold again, this time, she did not groan or mutter in her sleep. Her body was limp and peaceful against mine. I thanked God for small miracles.

It was already late morning and approaching thirty hours since I had had any sleep myself. My eyelids were made of iron as I finally succumbed to their weight. Bella's soft, comforting snore hummed against my chest and I happily let go.

Unfortunately, the universe seemed determined to keep sleep at bay. Just as I was dozing off, my cheek resting against Bella's head, there was a tentative knock at her door. It slowly pushed open and Charlie poked his head in.

I groaned and rolled my neck, working out the kinks. Bella didn't stir.

"How is she?" he asked, worry lines etched deeply into his crinkled brow and pursed lips. His eyes darted around the room at the chaos and then came back to us on the bed, the lines even deeper than before after taking in the sight of the trauma.

"She's better, Charlie," I whispered, not wanting to risk waking her by speaking at full volume.

"Good. I'm glad you're here, Edward." He swallowed thickly and looked anywhere but at me, settling on picking at a chip in the paint on the door jamb. His eyes were a slightly less dramatic mirror of his daughter's.

It wasn't just a difficult day for Bella.

He nodded and muttered something under his breath that I couldn't quite hear over the music. He closed the door behind him and I finally drifted off to join Bella wherever she was.

What felt like much, much later, my eyelids fluttered and I shifted my stiff body against the wall. I had shimmied down the bed a bit in sleep, still maintaining my hold on Bella, but had curled protectively around her in an awkward position. My entire body creaked as I stretched back out sleepily.

The faint noise that had awoken me continued and I rubbed my eyes and looked up to see my mother and Alice whispering together in the corner as they continued vigilantly repacking photos into their corresponding shoe boxes. I straightened up and glanced around the room, it was almost back to its formerly organized state.

Alice saw me squirming on the bed and smiled up at me. She had changed since the last time I saw her. Her bare feet padded noiselessly against the carpet as she crossed the room and reached into a backpack I didn't recognise that was slung over the back of the computer chair. She pulled a red lid off a Tupperware container and tiptoed over to me, holding out the dish of cold chicken strips, french fries, and tomato slices. Her smile broadened as I widened my eyes and sighed in thanks and grabbed a chicken strip, shoving it greedily into my mouth.

"I figured you hadn't eaten in almost a whole day, so…" she whispered, trailing off as the rest of the statement was obvious.

I nodded in appreciation and grabbed another chicken strip. She sat the container on the bed next to me then quietly went back to what she was doing before I woke up.

My mom stood from where she sat in the corner of the room and stretched, reaching her dainty limbs toward the ceiling and yawning before she turned back to me. She smiled and mouthed the word "hi". I nodded in greeting, my mouth full of fries.

She went back over to the backpack on the computer chair and rifled around for a second, then withdrew her hand, holding a black thermos.

"Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot about that," my sister said absently from the computer chair that she was precariously balanced on as she piled weathered notebooks back onto the shelf at the top of Bella's closet.

My mom brought the thermos over to me and unscrewed the lid. I immediately smelled the sweet aroma of the coffee and Bailey's as it wafted up in rolls of steam from the thermos.

She placed it gently on the nightstand beside me and then looked down at me for a long, _long _moment. At first I was to busy cramming fries into my mouth to notice she was just standing there staring at me, but eventually I stopped chewing and looked up at her. Her eyes were filled with tears and her lips were mashed together to prevent her from spilling her emotions out and waking up Bella.

_Right. Not just painful for Bella and Charlie._

I pushed aside the container of food and reached up for her, my eyes conveying more than I probably would have been able to voice if I had tried. She bent down and let me hug her for a few minutes as she tenderly dragged her fingers through my mess of hair. She placed a series of kisses to the top of my head and then gave me a final pat on the shoulder as she stood.

"I wish it was under better circumstances, but I'm glad to see you, Edward. I miss you," she whispered, her words shaky.

"I love you, mom," I more mouthed than said, but she heard me. She nodded and then looked up as my sister motioned to the door. The two of them exited quietly, with soft, sympathetic smiles on their lips.

Hours later, Bella woke up and looked around the room. I was awake and just staring into space, my thoughts floating haphazardly from one path to the other with little rhyme or reason as I held onto my sleeping girlfriend.

She sat up and looked down to where our legs were still tangled beneath her comforter – it was pretty evident that I hadn't moved all day…or night. Her eyebrows and adorable nose scrunched together in confusion.

"Little Cullen elves," I explained, winking at her and nodding toward the sparkling clean room.

She sighed and laid back against me, her fingertips swirling sleepy circles against my chest. "I'm so lucky to have you guys," she whispered.

Tears began welling up again and I wanted nothing more than to squelch them. There was no reason to cry over us being there for her, it went without saying or question. She could cry all she wanted over her loss, but it was silly to cry over our love – especially with such raw eyes. So I kissed each eye, forcing her to close them under the weight of my lips as they gently pressed into the red, puffy skin. Then I leaned back and looked down at her. I licked my lips and tasted the salty wetness.

"You would have done the same for any one of us, Bella."

After a few more moments spent in contented silence, I steeled myself to ask something I prayed would not bring on a fresh wave of pain, but wanting to plan the remainder of the weekend accordingly for her.

"Did you go see her already, or do you want me to go with you?" I held my breath and smoothed my palms over her arms.

"I made the cab stop on my way here from the airport," she whispered, her words wavering under the burden of emotion. I kissed her hair and tightened my hold. "But would you mind if sometime tomorrow we go and bring her flowers or something? I didn't have anything with me yesterday when I stopped and I didn't stay for very long."

The waver in her voice and tremor in her chest pricked at my own tear ducts and I did nothing but nod emphatically for several moments_. _Knowing how anguished my beautiful best friend was made my own chest swell and tighten as I wrestled with the overwhelming sense of helplessness that I always felt when she mourned her mother. I would give anything to be able to take away that pain.

"Of course," I finally breathed into her ear, then gently steered the conversation down a different path.

I was more than willing to discuss Renée further, but first Bella needed to be taken care of. I glanced down at the space on the bed where the empty Tupperware container was until Alice had taken it with her when they left. "Let's go get you something to eat."

Neither of us bothered with showering or cleaning up much beyond the necessary trips to the bathroom. Bella pulled on a different tee shirt that wasn't stained with tears and mascara, and a hoodie. She brushed her teeth while I fought with my hair in the mirror, eventually scowling at my reflection and giving up.

I grabbed her toothbrush out of her hand when she finished, reaching toward her little toiletry bag her to put it back. She twisted up her face and shook her head, obviously not keen on the idea of me using her toothbrush. I rolled my eyes and used it anyway. She sat on the edge of the bathtub and watched me until I finished. After I spat a mouthful of water back into the sink and turned to her, she finally spoke up. A choked-up "thank you" was all she could manage before she broke back down into body-wracking sobs.

It was like watching a glass shatter against the floor in slow motion. My reflexes were too sluggish to catch her and my heart splintered at the sound of her cries. I actually winced for a moment.

She slid down the side of the tub and I was on my knees in a heartbeat, holding and rocking her. I pet her hair and whispered sweet things to her. Her cries must have alerted the people downstairs that we were finally awake because within a minute of our sitting on the bathroom floor I heard the floorboards creak at the door behind me. Bella didn't look up but I twisted around to see my mother, father, and Charlie all standing in the doorway with matching looks of heartache on their faces as they took in the scene.

I didn't say anything to them as I gently continued singing into Bella's ear in a quiet whisper, my lips brushing against her. I rocked until she quieted, and then continued quite a few minutes after, just to make sure she was okay.

Eventually we picked ourselves back up off the cold floor and, with her hand firmly in mine, we stepped down the stairs.

Bella was met with warm hugs and kisses, which she returned meekly as expected. She politely declined everyone's offer to accompany us to the diner, assuring our worried parents that she would be okay and that we would come home immediately after getting something to eat. Everyone in the room looked beyond haggard, and I suggested that they all get some sleep while we were gone. It was already late and we would have to rush to catch the diner before they shut down their fryers as it was. And one look at Bella as she tried to reassure everyone that she would be fine told me that despite the past twelve hours, she was tired and not in the mood for the company.

After more hugs and kisses and a few silently falling teardrops, we were in Bella's busted old truck that usually sat unused in the driveway and on our way to the town's tiny little diner. As I drove, Bella leaned against my shoulder and dragged her fingertips back and forth along my denim-covered thigh.

We parked and made our way inside, walking slowly to a corner booth and slumping into it heavily. The waitress made her way over to the table to take our orders. She was about my mother's age but she hadn't lived in Forks her whole life, and so she hadn't known Renée. Still, it was a teeny town and everyone knew everything there was to know about all of its inhabitants.

She understood immediately the way Bella was curled into herself, hugging her torso and leaning against me on the same side of the table. She spoke with softness and pity in her eyes while Bella just smiled at her, not in the mood to hear words of condolences or sympathy. I asked her if she could make us two orders of pancakes with some bacon and scrambled eggs. She happily agreed and drifted away to shout the order back to the kid in the kitchen.

"Breakfast?" Bella asked quietly without lifting her head. It was nine o'clock at night.

"Why not?" I shrugged. We both knew the real answer was that it was her favourite and I ordered it to both comfort her and be assured that she would put in a good effort at actually eating something.

She hummed and nodded, dropping the topic and going back into her meditative silence. A silence that unfortunately was broken as the kid from the kitchen, whom we went to high school with, decided to come out and begin catching up with us.

He dragged a wooden chair over noisily from a table beside us and twisted it around, straddling it as he spoke in a booming voice. Bella gave her best attempt at courteous small talk without once lifting her head off my chest. The kid eyed us curiously as we sat tangled against one another in the small town diner in a way that, despite our always-present affection, we had never dared before. Bella was on my lap, her head on my chest. My fingers were combing a steady, comforting rhythm through her long hair, and my lips met with the top of her head every so often in a gentle kiss.

When the rambling imbecile finally looked up to me, no doubt to make some smart ass remark, my eyes blackened and narrowed on him. I managed to keep my body relaxed so Bella wouldn't notice the silent exchange, but with every ounce of ire I had in me I threatened the punk kid to walk away and leave Bella the fuck alone.

How dense could one kid be? He knew us our entire lives. He knew Bella lost her mother. He was just too inconsiderate to put two and two together.

As he slowly climbed off the chair with wide eyes, about to make his hasty retreat, I reached out and grabbed the cuff of his greasy work shirt.

"Hey. Could you put our orders in to-go containers when they're ready, please?" I asked in the most polite voice I could force. He nodded silently and left without saying good-bye to Bella, who didn't seem to notice.

Only once our food had been silently deposited on the table top in front of us did Bella look up. The waitress apologised and nodded toward the kitchen. I shrugged and thanked her and she walked away. I pat the side of Bella's leg twice to indicate for her to climb off my lap so we could stand.

She eyed the containers and then me questioningly; apparently unaware I had asked to have our food packaged up.

"I kinda thought we should get out of here," I explained.

"Oh. Good plan." She offered a weak smile and I leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips before scooping up her hand and leading her back to the truck. I wished the waitress a good night on my way out, not wanting to say the words "Mother's Day" aloud in front of Bella even though I knew the woman had children.

I took us to the edge of town to our soccer field, the one where we had played as children and said good-bye to one another painfully as teens. It was our place, and it would never be a sombre place, it would always be a place of beautiful memories. It just seemed appropriate.

The sun had set hours ago, but we were both clad in long-sleeves and jeans, so I figured we were safe from the early summer, night-time chill that was sure to be out there. The truck's old rusty doors rioted loudly on their hinges as we opened and shut them. I had the thermos tucked into my jacket pocket and held the plastic bag with our food in one hand and Bella's arm at her elbow in the other as we stepped over the hitching post ropes and into the grassy field.

I wasn't taking any chances with Bella in her exhausted state, and she _always _tripped over that goddamn rope – which she did. But since I had her elbow she didn't do more than stumble a bit and soon we were swinging peacefully in our swings with Styrofoam breakfast platters balancing on our laps.

We dug our toes into the sawdust below and pushed our swings lightly as we ate with plastic knives and forks in silence. There wasn't a lot to say. Besides that, Bella and I never felt the need to fill the emptiness with sound just for the sake of it. We were perfectly content just being near one another.

Halfway through my pancakes, that I didn't really need given I was still full on chicken strips, but that I happily ate any way, Bella spoke. Her words were quiet and her cheeks were slightly stuffed with pancakes. She was so fucking adorable. Her eyes stayed trained on her container as she swirled her bacon in syrup.

"I love you," she murmured.

I smiled over at her, my heart fucking leaping through my chest with joy at seeing the pain slowly lift. I stabbed at a bunch of eggs, the weak plastic tines on my fork bending as I thought for a second. I smiled contentedly before shoving the bite into my mouth.

"You're alright yourself," I returned with grin, chancing at a joke.

She scoffed and looked up. The sweet little smile on her face finished me off and my goddamn eyes filled with tears at seeing her resemble her normal, cheerful self again. Fortunately for me, it was too dark for her to notice. She just kicked me firmly in the shin, kicking up a cloud of dust, and then returned to her pancakes. My egg-filled cheeks ached under the strain of my huge smile.

When we returned to Bella's house, the lights were out but the front door was unlocked. Charlie was probably in bed and my parents had obviously returned home. We quietly climbed the stairway and crept down the hall to Bella's room. Once inside, we striped down to our underwear and crawled under the covers together. We had a long but peaceful night's sleep.

I woke up before Bella, still adjusted to New York time, and fumbled blindly around on her nightstand for my cell. I found it and noticed I had two missed calls and a few missed text messages already. It was 9:53 AM.

_Hey baby. When you guys wake up, give us a call and let us know what your plans are for the day. We love you. – Mom_

_How is she? Let me know what I can do. – Allie_

_Are you seriously not up yet? – Allie_

_Guess not. Fine. Rose & Em are hosting a big fam dinner tonight. I think it'd be a good idea for B. It'll be more about the baby & less about MDay. I love you lazy bastards! – Allie_

I chuckled under my breath at how annoying and bossy she could be, I could practically envision her lower lip jutting out, but I did agree with her. The dinner at my brother's would be exciting and filled with "baby" talk, leaving very little time left to spend in sorrow. Bella would have enough of that by the time we were finished with the cemetery.

I had accompanied Bella to her mother's grave more times than I could count over the years. It was a completely comfortable experience for me and I loved sharing in it with her.

After stopping at the florist on the way to grab a large wildflower bouquet, we made the short drive out to the Forks Cemetery. I drove along the old dirt road that I was regrettably too familiar with and pulled into a parking spot. There were several other visitors given the holiday, but most were older people having lost their mothers to old age, not a natural tragedy.

After placing the car in park I promptly shut off the radio and pulled the keys from the ignition, cradling them silently in my hand and unbuckling my seatbelt, but making no other move to exit the vehicle. I laid my head back against the headrest and reached over blindly to cover Bella's trembling hand with my own. It always took her a good ten minutes to be ready to face the place where her mother's body had been buried.

Eventually, I heard the sharp intake of breath and the slow, shaky release and I knew she was ready. I opened my eyes and sat up. I leaned over to place a small kiss at her temple before releasing her hand and opening my car door.

The cemetery was pretty plain as far as cemeteries went. It was a small open field on the other side of town, essentially in the middle of nowhere. There was a brick mausoleum at the far end of the complex and the right side bordered one of the town's many churches. It was peculiar, and something I had come to appreciate as being distinctly small town Pacific Northwest, that a place with just over three thousand people had seventeen dive bars and nine churches.

We walked leisurely, hand in hand, to Renée's gravestone. We normally just stood around quietly, but that particular Mother's Day was gorgeous. The sun was high in the sky by noon. Birds were chirping merrily around us and the hot, late spring sunshine created a light atmosphere, despite the solemnity of the visit. Row upon row of meticulously aligned cherry blossom trees had bloomed and their cheery pink petals separated each row of grave markers. Given the sunshine, I opted to wait on the ground.

I squatted down and tested the thick grass with my hand first, to make sure that it wasn't damp with dew. It wasn't, so I sprawled out flat on my back and rest my head against my bent arms. I stretched my legs out and closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the bright orange sun as it glowed against my eyelids.

Bella quickly set about tending to her mother's gravesite. She tenderly plucked weeds from around the stone and brushed the settled grime and dust from the surface. I heard the plastic flower wrapping rustling as she fiddled with them before laying them at the foot of the headstone. She moved back toward me where I lay a good fifteen feet from the grave and the next thing I felt was the light weight of her head as she lay out next to me against my abdomen.

I peeked open one eye and glanced down at her just to make sure she was still holding up well. She was, and I knew better than to disturb her. I lay silently, relaxing in the grass with my hands still under my own head and waited. It was the time that Bella spoke silently to her mother and told her all the very private things that a girl would only confide in a girlfriend about.

I waited until she began speaking aloud and then I reached out and combed my fingers through the hair that fell across my stomach. I hummed lightly under my breath, not enough to disrupt her, just enough to keep a calm, peaceful atmosphere.

I couldn't help myself, as with every other time I had joined Bella to visit Renée, as a huge smile spread across my face. It may seem perverse or inappropriate, but it was just so damn adorable the way Bella rambled aloud to her mother like an excited toddler. Her words slurred with speed and her sentences smushed together and ended in a high-pitched, air-starved voice until she finally paused to take in a quick breath and then she was off again.

It made my heart happy to know that she still felt close enough to her mom to be able to talk for hours on end about absolutely nothing, and that I was entrusted to bear witness to such a beautiful little happening.

I was also overjoyed to see Bella's smile, knowing that her silent conversation carried much more weight than the one I was privy to. That was the reason why, after a few years of being left at the gravesite alone with Bella, I suggested that she reverse the order in which she spoke to her mother. She used to speak aloud first, easing into her comfort at conversing with a stone, and then end on a sombre, quiet note that, understandably, left her in a funk for days. Now she ended giggling and it made my heart swell every time we walked back to the car and continued her animated conversations with me lieu of Renée.

Once we were driving back down the dirt road for Calawah Way to make our way back over to our side of the small town I reached over and turned down the volume of the radio.

"So, are you nervous?" I asked when she finally paused long enough that I could say something without cutting her off.

"About what?" he tone gave away her confusion.

"Sorry, I guess that's a bit vague," I laughed as we darted across the one-oh-one. "About starting the internship at the paper in September? That seemed to be what you told your mom about the most." I was selfishly hedging around something. I was anxious to see if she would catch it.

"Oh, no I'm not nervous. I mean...okay, yeah. I guess I am a little, but I think I can handle it, you know? It will be fun."

"Of course you can handle, Bella. It's just an internship, and if they don't offer you a job by the end of the year then they're idiots and you deserve to work for a better company anyway," I preached.

"Yeah well, I won't be holding my breath, Edward. They are a huge firm and are very particular about who they hire. The industry is more cut-throat than you know...trust me," her voice grew small and trailed off and I had the distinct impression that she was thinking of something specific that I did not know about.

I smiled, eager to find out.

Turning down her street I glanced over and studied her for a moment. I parked against the curb in the front of her house because The Red Beast was taking up the entire driveway after being put to use the night before and not yet parked off to the side of the yard. I turned to her, stilled the car, and unbuckled my seatbelt to face her better. I arched one brow in silent question and from the look that washed across her beautiful little features I knew that I was right. She was referencing something particular and it was something that until about five minutes from _now_, I didn't know.

She looked up from under her eyelashes at me, cautiously regarding me. I smirked. We both knew that whatever little secret she was harbouring, she was going to tell me. She licked her lips and then chewed on her lower one for some time before steadying herself with a long wavering breath. I would have been nervous except for the way her eyes held a quiet laughter and her lips turned up at the corners despite the way she bit them.

"Okay, fine," she pouted, unbuckling her seatbelt and spinning to face me. "So when I applied for the position at the Centre, I may have also submitted a very extensive application to Tribune that took me like six months to work on." She flushed bright pink and grimaced, bowing her head abruptly to hide from me and stare into her lap.

I had no clue what the hell that meant.

After a few moments of nothing but confounded silence from my side of the car she looked back up, biting her lip nervously, still flushed. "Well?" she questioned. "Say something."

I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. She gave the impression that she had just confessed her biggest transgression ever and I was utterly lost. I shook my head at her and cupped her cheek.

"Baby...I have no fucking clue what that means. But you are so cute right now it's killing me. What is 'Tribune', is that another paper or something?"

She gaped at me for a solid two minutes before she stammered and then gave up, took a deep breath and tried again.

"Edward! Tribune is only the largest single-holder of all major newspapers in Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, and New York. Forget their dailies; they also have a their claws in 26 television stations, radio, syndication, consumer mags, and a zillion other media investments. They just finalized a huge merger with AOL Time-Warner, perhaps you have heard of _them?_

"Tribune is one of, if not _the,_ largest media empire in North America. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher in terms of revenue and number three in total circulation. They have connections everywhere."

If I thought she was adorable _before _her mini-rant... But truthfully she lost me somewhere in the first sentence. Right around the time she mentioned _New York _and I realised the reason she was blushing. She was trying to apply for a position that once she graduated in a year she could relocate to be near me.

To say that I was floored, honoured, and speechless would be understatements. I guess I was just in awe. And in love.

"Bella," I finally choked out, my throat feeling unnaturally tight.

She glanced back up at me and muttered, "I know, it was a long shot..."

I pulled her tight against my chest for a bear hug and kissed the top of her head before releasing her. She grinned at me.

"You applied with that company just for _me_? So we could be closer?" I was really choked up by the sentiment and the tremendous effort behind a six month long application process.

She laughed. "No, Edward, geez. I applied with Tribune because of all of the reasons I just mentioned...were you not paying attention? That would have been a once in a lifetime job opportunity with worldwide networking connections for life. _That_ is why I applied. God...you are _so _self-centred," she joked, rolling her eyes dramatically and shoving me in the shoulder.

I bounced back and attacked her, kissing her deeply, weaving my fingers tightly into the hair at the back of her head and pressing my whole self into her. By the time I pulled back we were both gasping for oxygen in a delicious sort of way. I met my eyes with hers while I gulped back some air but didn't relinquish my hold on her face. I pecked a few kisses, one...two...three.., against her lips and nuzzled our noses together. I hoped my eyes conveyed the overwhelming fucking love I had for that woman and that she could read it.

"My dad is planning on coming tonight, barring any great Forks Police emergencies, so I'll drive over with him in a few hours, okay?" she asked in a shaky voice, placing a chaste kiss on the tip of my nose. She giggled and tried to keep her face serious as she attempted to smooth down my riotous hair, made worse with her tugging at it for the last five minutes.

I couldn't have cared less what my hair looked like, I was too busy trying to convince my body that it was not a suitable time to take her in the house, throw her on the bed and have my way with her.

I wasn't exactly crazy about the idea of leaving her alone for a few hours until Charlie got home, but she was adamant. We both needed to shower and find something decent to wear to the nice dinner my sister-in-law was throwing for herself. That was going to be a difficult task given that we had both arrived in the state of Washington with nothing but the clothes on our backs, which were dirty jeans. Neither of us had much beyond old tee shirts and sweat pants at our parent's house.

Inspiration hit and abated my possessive, protective side with the compromise. Just before the car door shut completely I called out to her that I would send Alice over with something for her to wear. I smiled wide and drove off as she spun back and mock-glared at me, crossing her arms across her chest.

I called Alice on my way back to my parent's house and she was all too happy to play dress-up with Bella. _I _on the other hand was going to have a much more difficult time finding something appropriate to wear.

I bummed around for a few hours in an old pair of sweats that I found in the bottom of the Chester drawers in my old bedroom while I washed the clothes I had come in. I had showered and cleaned myself up and was rummaging around with my mother's permission through the shirts hanging on my father's side of their walk-in closet when he came home from his shift at the hospital.

Tired and needing to shower before we headed out for the two hour drive to my brother's house he was surprised to find me barefoot and clad in only a pair of black jeans deep inside his closet. He jumped back and swore under his breath as I chuckled at him. I shook my head without looking up from the rack of shirts and muttered something about me not being a medical doctor so please don't have a heart attack, I wouldn't know what to do.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked still recovering.

"I don't have any clothes here except these jeans and the baseball tee and jacket I came in. I need something to wear tonight. We both know Rosalie will kick my ass if I show up in a torn tee-shirt that she knows perfectly well I have had since before Emmett even met her," I scoffed…but I was dead serious. She would be livid. She took parties that she threw for herself very seriously.

"Hmm…you're probably right about that, son." He ruffled my still-damp hair and shuffled me aside. "Let's see… You obviously need something that will go with those jeans," he mused continuing to leaf through shirts slowly.

"Obviously." I was three inches taller than him and all three inches were in my legs. There was no way I was going to be able to wear any of his dress pants. Black jeans were going to have to do. "Shrimp," I added jokingly just for fun.

He stopped searching and turned to scowl at me. I just smiled my silly, crooked smile at him and waited for him to laugh it off and return to the great shirt hunt...but he didn't. He continued to eye me with something I couldn't quite place lighting up his eyes from the inside out. His head tilted marginally to the side as he regarded me. He smiled pleasantly, more to himself than me, and went back to his task.

"Did you get mom those flowers that I saw on the kitchen table just now?" he asked without looking back at me, occasionally pulling down a shirt to hang on the rack below.

"Yup. I wish I had time to think of something better, but I didn't exactly know I'd be in town for Mother's Day so… I kinda just planned on calling her and playing on how much she misses me and calling that my gift. Because I'm apparently a lazy and shitty son like that…" I trailed off, feeling horrible that I hadn't even remembered it was Mother's Day until five days ago when Bella had reminded me.

Even then, I had been in no shape to remember the conversation the next day. Sometimes I just got so immersed in my own stupid academic bubble out in the city that…everything just kind of slipped away and I took for granted that it would all be there waiting for me when I resurfaced, exactly as I had left it.

"Hey, hey!" he scolded. "Enough with that, Edward." He turned to face me. He gave me a long, sharp look and then wrapped his hands around my bare shoulders and drilled his eyes into mine. I was familiar with that look. I had received it many times when I was a petulant, brooking child. It was his 'I'm-only-going-to-say-this-once-so-listen-up' look.

I blinked a few times but didn't say anything, patiently awaiting the lecture that I knew was coming.

"I guess I don't say this enough, son, but your mother and I are _so _incredibly proud of you. I really and truly cannot explain how proud you make us. You work so hard and have already accomplished such great things in your life. You've always been a remarkable kid, Edward, but it prides us to see what a beautiful man you are growing into.

"You have no idea how much we love you and what a gift it is just to be able to see you this weekend, regardless of how brief. Please, never doubt that you are anything shy of extraordinary, son." And with that he placed a sincere kiss atop my forehead and then turned to offer me the selection of dress shirts he had gathered.

I took them while blinking stupidly as my father's words sank in. Of course I knew that my parents were proud of me, what parent's wouldn't be happy that their kid was in med school? But I had never really dedicated a lot of thought to it, and in that moment I realised just how important my father's approval was to me. I wanted him to be proud, impressed, and delighted by my success; it was one of the things that had always driven me so hard my whole life.

"Well…thanks dad. Really," I paused, my throat feeling that annoying constriction of emotion yet again. "But I still should have gotten mom some perfume or something." It was only a half-hearted suggestion in an effort to lighten the suddenly intense mood.

He laughed. "She hates perfume and you know it. She has every item of jewellery under the sun, is never un one place long enough to enjoy a lit candle, and I think you are just a tad too old to stick your hand in some clay and ask her to hang it on the wall. _You _are her gift. Believe me, she couldn't be happier. In fact…" He stopped himself and shook his head as I held up each shirt selection and either kept it to try on or rolled my eyes and hung it back up. But the way he stalled his own words caught my attention and so I looked up at him.

"In fact what?" I prompted.

"Nothing, just… She was really emotional last night after everything with Bella. But the one bright patch in the otherwise horrific day was you. She couldn't stop talking about how much it warmed her heart to see you and the way you cared for Bella. Watching you hold her on that bathroom floor and sing in her ear until she relaxed really reminded us was a caring person you are, and how gentle and sincere you can be. It was heartbreaking to watch, don't get me wrong, but it was a beautiful display of what an extraordinary man you have become. Believe me when I say that _that _was your mother's gift and that she would never want anything more.

"Personally, I think it was good for Charlie to see too," he winked at me then crouched down and began digging on the floor underneath hanging pairs of pants. He pulled out one box of shoes and then ducked back in for another.

"How is she today, anyway? I was pretty worried last night?" a muffled voice asked from somewhere at my feet.

"You and me both. She's much better today though. We spent the morning at the cemetery. I think tonight will help distract her, but I'm nervous to put her back on a plane in the morning and ship her back to Arizona after all of this," I confessed, my tone thick with my worry.

"I bet." He stacked another box of shoes on top of the first and then stood and pulled open the top drawer on his side of the closet. "So how is all of _that _going anyway?" I could hear the obvious attempt at sounding casual as he referenced my not-so-secret relationship with Bella.

I rolled my eyes and threw the dark blue shirt that I selected on the foot of the bed. I came back to kneel in front of the shoe boxes, thankful we at least had the same size feet and I wouldn't have to wear my battered runners. He peeked over his shoulder at the shirt I chose and then grabbed a black belt and dress socks from the drawer, tossed them over the top of my head to the bed and then looked down at me expectantly.

I scrubbed my palms over my face and rubbed eagerly with the heels of my hands into the sockets of my eyes, revelling in the feeling and the flash of colour as it shot across the black backdrop of my closed lids.

"I don't know dad. It's going, you know? It's just us, so...we'll make it work. Eventually."

_Please don't make me talk about this right now..._

I opened the lid to a Versace box to reveal a pair of black ankle boots with a very faint croc pattern and a wrap-around combat buckle on the side. They were incredibly sleek shoes. They were very much _not _my father's style. I smirked and arched a single brow up at him.

"Alice," he grumbled sufficiently.

I laughed and scooped them up, shoving the other boxes back under the closet shelves.

"Please, for the love of God, keep those, Edward. I will never wear them." He rolled his eyes and smiled fondly at his annoying little do-gooder daughter's gesture.

I left thanked him, for so much more than just the clothes, and left to get ready before Bella and Charlie would arrive.

Charlie rode with my sister and Jasper to keep them company and catch up since it had been a while since he and Allie had talked. The man had always held a soft spot in his heart for her.

Bella and I cuddled together in the back seat of my father's SUV like we were sneaky teenagers all over again. My parents chatted quietly in the front seat while I held Bella close and we talked between ourselves. Every couple of minutes I dipped down to steal a light kiss, either gently on her forehead or brushing my lips just over the top of hers for a second quietly in between sentences. My parents either didn't notice or just didn't care; it was immaterial to me which it was.

We all had a wonderful evening. Rosalie's parents and grandparents even joined us. The food was excellent and even I had to admit that my sister-in-law was radiant – glowing just like a beautiful cliché.

She was just over halfway through the pregnancy and was going in for a routine ultrasound the following morning. A friendly debate stirred up amongst all of us at the dining table over dessert and drinks as to whether they should find out the sex of the baby or not.

My brother surprised me by being adamantly opposed to it, claiming that he wanted to be surprised. He gave an endearing little speech about life not having many genuine surprises these days and that this was something worth waiting for. I eyeballed him appreciatively, realising just how fucking excited to become a father my oaf of a brother really was. I had to admit, I gained a whole new level of respect for the guy that night. There was a glint in his eye and the playful quirk in his lips as his wife retold the story of when she first waved the pink stick in front of his face almost five months ago that made me proud of him.

_What a fucking emotional weekend. _It had been an exhausting forty-eight hours.

My father shut us all up by announcing that regardless of their decision he was going to call the clinic tomorrow and ask for himself, saying that the technician will make a note of the sex on the film documents whether the parents want to be informed or not. He said he was going to find out and then screw with us all by dropping vague references leaning toward both sexes for the next four months. He smiled slyly at all of us and winked at Rosalie playfully and we all burst into laughter knowing that he would never actually do that to them.

I held Bella's hand throughout the entire meal and all of the banter afterward. I rubbed soft, slow circles against the heel of her palm, feeling the solid comfort of her fingers physically intertwined with mine. Only after catching Alice's goofy smile out of the corner of my eye did I realise that I did all of that _on top _of the table and not under it like usual.

When Rosalie took my sister, Bella, and her family upstairs to show off the nursery I followed my mom and Emmett into the kitchen to help clear the dishes and clean up so Rosalie wouldn't have to do it later.

I was rinsing dirty dishes off in the sink and handing them to my mother to place in the dishwasher when her gentle voice interrupted my errant thoughts.

"Edward, can I ask you something?" she asked, sounding slightly hesitant. I braced myself.

"Of course, ma."

"Last night, at Bella's…you were singing something to her while curled up on the bathroom floor. Do you mind if I ask what it was?"

It didn't slip my attention that Emmet stopped putting things roughly back into the refrigerator and stared at me with an odd smirk on his face. I continued rinsing dishes and ignored him.

"I don't know, just a song," I replied vaguely, hoping to get out of giving the real answer.

"I didn't recognise the melody, but it seemed to really calm her down," she persisted.

She refused to take the plate I was handing her and just smiled over at me from the other side of the dishwasher, clearly not letting me off the hook. I scowled lightly at her which didn't faze her in the least.

"It's a song we made up when were kids. I don't know, it's…" I couldn't bring myself to say that it was _dumb_, because it wasn't. "It's just a silly song and the words change every time I sing it, but the point is always the same. I usually just hum the tune without any words." I shrugged and looked away, feeling my cheeks burn a little.

I pushed the plate in my hands closer to my mom, shot my eyes at my brother quickly and then looked back to my mom willing her to just take the plate and drop it. I was balancing on a knife edge of emotion this trip, now was not the time to delve into all things me and Bella.

She took the plate with a smile and a nod but she wasn't quite finished with me.

"That's a really sweet idea, baby, to hum or to sing to her whenever she's upset like that. You were rocking her back and forth and it just stood out to me that you were singing to her and not just shushing her, but perhaps that's just the mother in me," she explained.

I understood what she meant but my stomach churned at the idea.

"Bella is in pain every day of her life over missing her mother, whether she admits it or not. Whenever that pain boils over and she needs to breakdown and cry in front of me…I _will never '_shush' her. She can cry all she wants to, she's earned it," I said with reverence.

After several minutes of gathering silverware in my hands and running them under the water I realised how quiet the room had become. I glance up at my mom who actually had tears in her eyes, and then at my brother who was nodding respectfully with a look of consideration on his face.

"What?" I demanded and bent down to drop the silverware in the little cubbies in the dishwasher.

My mother's fingers swept through my hair and she smiled sweetly. "Nothing, baby. I just never thought of it like that before." She kissed me on the cheek and I offered her a smile so she knew it was just the idea and not her that I had reacted so strongly to.

We finished the dishes while listening to my brother explain in detail how difficult a crib could be to build. He stopped helping so that he could vigorously demonstrate every injury he received while trying to cram his huge mitts into the small spaces with a screwdriver. I was grateful to him for lightening the mood with his ridiculous antics.

As we were leaving later that night I hugged him for longer than I perhaps ever have our entire lives. I kissed him sloppily on the cheek until he planted his palm against the side of my face and shoved me off of him with a smirk and a sarcastic comment.

Bella went back to her house with Charlie to spend the night with him despite how desperately I wanted her to spend it with me. I tried to be understanding about it and not pout too obviously as I walked her to her front door and kissed her lightly on the lips before returning back to my parents awaiting car.

While I appreciated that it was a difficult time of year and Bella needed some time with her dad before she left in the morning, that didn't keep my from growling out my annoyance and taking it out on the remote buttons as I pushed them roughly at three AM on the couch downstairs. I was flipping distractedly through TV channels and grumbling to myself when soft footsteps on the stairwell alerted me to my mother's presence. I looked up just as she rounded the corner and came into the room smiling at me sleepily.

"Can't sleep?" she asked in a tone that implied she knew so much more than she let on.

I nodded and moved to sit up and make room for her on the couch.

She sat in the corner and then placed a throw pillow in her lap and pulled my head back down to rest. She swept her fingers through my hair and her palm over my forehead, pushing my hair back off my face while we rested in silence with the muted flicker of the TV in front of us.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed my mother's gentle touch, it was incredibly cathartic.

I smiled to myself dreamily with my eyes closed. _I am such a momma's boy. _

"Are you happy, baby?" she asked, never faltering in the steady brush of her hand over my head.

I blinked and screwed my face up in thought, too sleepy to properly wrap my head around what she meant. "Yeah, I guess. Most of the time," I eventually answered. "I'm content but anxious, you know, to just get my Phd and get on with everything already." It was the most honest answer I had.

"What's 'everything'?" she asked innocently.

"I don't know, just, _everything. _My life, my job, my family...no more school. Just, everything." I closed my eyes again and thought of Bella.

"And…you plan on returning to Washington for this?"

I craned my neck back and squinted open my eyes so I could see an upside down view of my mother's soft face as she asked one of the questions that no doubt plagued her.

"You know I do, mom. I hate being away from everyone so much. I can't wait for this summer. Sometimes I get so homesick it makes me crazy. New York is _not _my home, believe me."

We spent over an hour talking, just me and my mom. When I was just about to fall asleep I whispered that I loved her and asked her to stay with me for a while longer. Through the blurry haze of my halfway lowered lids and eyelashes I saw her happy smile as she nodded and leaned her head against the back of the couch.

She began humming quietly. It made me smile, remembering our exchange earlier.

"Mom," I murmured seconds away from sleep.

"Yes?"

"Happy Mother's Day."

* * *

Maybe it didn't warrant a warning after all, IDK. I was a weepy, emp mess last week. My apologies.

Oh, and sorry it was posted late in the day, I was busy with work since I was otherwise detained yesterday and had to make the day up...cuz...

I maybekinda crashedintoa Porsche

I'm going to go make some pancakes now.

Thank you all, so so much for making this _one shot _so special, we are over halfway there.

*sloppy emo kisses to all*

~xox~


	27. Building Blocks

Sorry I missed last weeks update.

If you are ever wondering what the deal is, come find me on Twitter. My link is on my profile page. I always keep everyone on there updated as to what's going on with this bad boy. No...not you SECRETward, you're a very good boy. I just mean this beast of a "one-shot".

Speaking of profile links...I fixed my previously sorry attempt at linking outfits and whatnot. So go check it out if that stuff interests you. *wink*

Oh, and speaking of one-shots, be sure to check out mine called Polar Bears Do It, over at http:/ thetwinklings. blogspot. com/

Finally, speaking of love...oh wait, no one was talking about love. Regardless, I love all readers, reviews, and Monika for tolerating my Goldfishness.

*sloppy kisses to all*

~xox~

* * *

"C'mon! It's been like..._forever_!" a voice whined in my ear. Her arms were heavy and clumsy around my neck and her breath was warm in my ear despite the drizzle in the air.

I chuckled and set down the beer bottle that dangled from my fingertips on the picnic table next to where she sat. I pulled back to gaze at her with a cocky, half-drunk smirk on my face.

"Bella, it has only been like two hours! That's hardly 'forever', love," I purred back at her, knowing the words weren't going to register inside her drunken, horny head.

"Edward," she said with a stern voice and a sharp look, her fingers flirting with the hair underneath the hood of my sweatshirt. "We both know that car sex doesn't really count."

She pushed off me and scooted back deeper into the picnic table until her legs kicked freely in the air. I stood between them with my brows knit together and a confused look on my face. Music pulsed through the house behind me, spilling out of the open doors. People were everywhere, but I was happy to note that I wasn't related to any of them. The air was damp. The fog was low and everything was wet. Bella licked her lips as her fingertips trailed down the front of my sweatshirt, stopping at the buckle on my jeans.

_Yeah...everything. _

It really wasn't her fault. I knew the smouldering look I was eyeing her with dripped of sex. The left corner of my lip curled upward in a cheeky smirk and my fingers kneaded into the flesh at her thighs where they spread before me.

"Since when does car-sex not count as _real_ sex?" I asked, a trace of humour in my voice.

"Since I decided it left me wanting more," she whined.

She let go of my belt buckle and leaned backward on her palms. Her chest rose and fell slowly, relaxed and comfortable and on display for me somewhere under all her layers – mine for the taking. My eyes followed the long, straight line from her chin over her breastbone and to her lap before looking back up at her. She bat her lashes at me and gave me her best I'm-trying-to-look-sexy face.

I couldn't help laughing a little until she kicked me in the thigh – a little too close for comfort to the increasingly straining problem I had in my pants. She may have been comical in her drunken-flirty state, but she was still my girl…and she was propositioning me. That shit was always exciting.

I swallowed audibly and glared at her. Leaning in, my voice was dark and stern. "I have never, not once, left you unsatisfied. And you know it," I growled in her ear, pinching the tip of it between my teeth sharply to illustrate my point. "And the fresh scratches you just left on my neck and shoulders confirm that. Thank you very much."

She at least had good sense to look apologetic. She bit her lip and pouted. "I didn't say I was unsatisfied, _spaz_. I said 'wanting more'. I can't help it, Edward. I always want more of you."

Oh. Well _that_ I could appreciate.

"I'm not a spaz," I murmured, fully aware of the way I slurred the word 'spaz', but unable to do anything about it.

I reached down and wrapped my long fingers around her slender wrists and yanked them out from under her as payback for the name-calling. She caught herself by grabbing at my sweatshirt right before her back hit the tabletop. She sat up and shoved me with a palm at my chest and a smile on her lips. I laughed and wrapped my arms around her entire body both as an anchor and a sign of truce.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a young kid who worked with Charlie, several kids we went to school with, and a man whom I knew golfed with my father every Sunday. I happily ignored every single one of them. The only person who mattered was balanced atop the picnic table right in front of me.

I leaned down and slid my fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, curling it in between each finger and feeling it tickle my palms as I gripped her tight. It forced her head back, her weight still on her outstretched arms, and her neck unprotected. I kissed the entire column until I reached her jaw. I placed a small peck on her chin and then crashed my mouth to hers abruptly. Through the haze of lust and drink the only thought in my mind was how badly I wanted to consume her.

I slid my tongue into her mouth as hers brushed against mine. A moan escaped her and vibrated through me, sending aftershocks in small, steady ripples down my entire body. Inside my runners, my toes tensed and curled. I tightened my grip in her hair even more. She whimpered, but I knew it was a needy keen and not one of pain. We both knew I would never hurt her.

My lips mashed into hers roughly until, after several long minutes, I found enough strength to ease my grip and employ every ounce of restraint I had to soften my hands in order to counterbalance the hunger I was devouring her with. I slid my fingers down the neck of her jacket, my cold skin meeting her soft warmth. She hummed as the sensation hit her and I delicately stroked my fingertips back and forth over the top of her spine, light and soft. My lips, on the other hand, were firm and demanding.

The force of my kiss gradually pushed her further and further away but she held herself to me with her fists clenched in the cotton of my sweatshirt. I climbed one knee up onto the bench of the picnic table and wrapped my opposite hand around her hip to grip her ass. I pulled her back to the edge of the table against me, needing to feel her solid form closer to mine. It felt reassuring. Her entire body purred beneath me. I could feel the gentle roll of each shudder as it ebbed and flowed inside her.

Deciding we had long since breeched the line of appropriate public affection, I battled myself to slow the kiss. Like the horny little angel that she was, she fought me. She tightened her grip on my sweatshirt and hooked her calves around the backs of my knees, whining into my mouth.

I happily kissed away her protest and swallowed back the pleas while slowing my movements on her lips regardless. I withdrew my tongue from deep inside her mouth and slid it over her bottom lip, drawing it in and sucking on it before releasing it. I nipped at her and kissed, studiously trying to compartmentalize the swelling, painful issue that fought against the button fly of my jeans. Public etiquette kind of dictated that I should not throw her on top of the picnic table and bury myself so deep inside her little, willing body that I lost myself and never found my way back. But I wanted to. Badly.

I opened my eyes and found Bella's already open and watching me. They were narrowed and swam with an urgency that mirrored my own as we kissed.

_Always wanting more…_

Her teeth grazed my bottom lip and the sensation from the small action made me to groan aloud. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment to get a grip on myself. When I reopened them, I could feel her smile against my mouth and see it dancing in her eyes that were so, so close.

The power she held over me was astounding.

Our noses brushed. Our breath was shared. Our lips moved together. Our eyes held each others – open and exposed.

Instantly, the kiss did a one-eighty and we were steady and gentle. My lips made slow promises to hers as my tongue washed softly against her. We kept our eyes open, not willing to close off that connection with the other. It took a lot of trust to kiss that way.

To anyone else the display may have looked odd or uncomfortable, but not many lovers are as at ease with one another as me and Bella. Nothing made us uncomfortable. If anything, looking into her eyes less than four centimetres from mine while my mouth hungrily worshiped hers was intense and comforting all at the same time. I could see her eyes twitch with each pass of my tongue as she warred with her own restraint and enjoyed what I did to her body – the power she gave me over her.

I could see into the pools of brown, made black with the night time darkness. I could spend an eternity swimming in them and never truly tire of all that they held. There was promise and love, memories and dreams, pain and joy. Her eyes were the window into her soul, and to be allowed to play so close to the gate was both a humbling and empowering experience.

I loved her.

She loved me.

It seemed simple, but in practice love was complex. It had layers that took time to develop and appreciate. It required effort and trust, compassion and benevolence. Friendship.

_I love you._

The words were nothing but a breath from my mouth to hers, but I saw the glint in her eye that meant she felt them.

Her hands dropped limp by her sides and reached out to dip into the front pockets of my jeans, trying with the very little strength she had to pull me closer to her. I swept my tongue over her upper lip, gliding it slowly against the underside, feeling her teeth as I withdrew.

Bella whimpered and her eyes fluttered but remained open. Her lips wrapped around my tongue as I toyed with her. Fighting back, she sucked on me trying to affect me as much as I was affecting her. She slid the circle of her mouth from the base of my tongue to the tip, sucking it.

I nearly came undone right then. _How the fuck?_

"You know, we've never done it on a table top before," she murmured with her lips still connected to mine.

I laughed. "And how exactly would you propose we do that without getting caught?" I purred, running the fingers that were at her neck slowly through her hair, combing it out and laying it against her back gently. I washed my mouth over hers a few more times while she pondered the riddle.

"There are picnic tables all over Forks, Edward, not just in this backyard."

I stared at her in silence for several long minutes. The beers had really begun to seep into every crevice of my body, bowling me over with both fatigue and lust. I rested my forehead against hers and felt her hot breath on my wet lips. I licked them hoping to taste her.

She blinked.

When her eyes reopened they were big and beautiful, like innocent little doe-eyes. I loved her eyes. I loved that I was the only one who had ever seen them so close, the only one to generate such reverence in their depths as they looked back at me. They were my eyes. I was a lucky man.

"Bella?" Her name came out like a question in a choked voice, though I hadn't meant it to.

"Yes?" She whispered.

"You're the only reason I even breathe."

I was drunk. It sounded romantic in my head. Luckily, she was just as smashed as I was so she appreciated the depth behind the cheesy declaration. Her eyes shined and one fat tear escaped each eye. They slid down her cheeks and landed on my lips. They rolled into mouth and I cupped her jaw in my hands.

"You know what I mean," I whispered.

"I do," she choked out. The words sent an electric trill through my limbs and tugged at something in my mind. My smile stretched wide against her lips and I could see in her eyes that she felt it.

"I like hearing you say those words," I whispered and placed several innocent pecks around the corners of her mouth and her cheek. "Can we go now?"

She nodded eagerly.

I scooped her up and held her against me for a minute, keeping my knee on the picnic table bench to maintain my balance. I kissed her one more time softly, nuzzling against her before I let her slip down my body. Keeping my arms around her as she wobbled shakily on her feet, I rolled my eyes behind her back wondering if it was beer or me that made her so unsteady.

It was probably just _her._

I held Bella's hand in mine as we made our way along the cobblestone walkway against the side of the house, trying to navigate to the front where everyone's cars were parked illegally along the tiny side street. We giggled at something incoherent and she tripped over a raised paving stone. I reached out to try and grab her waist but tripped over my own foot in a poetic display of drunken ineptitude. We righted ourselves with a palm against a tree just in time to save us from hitting the ground. I leaned against the tree and rest my head on my hand, feeling Bella's beautiful little form curl against my back shaking with laughter.

"Looks like I'm not the only uncoordinated one, baby" a sloppy voice cooed just below my ear. Cold hands slipped around my waste and under my sweatshirt as she held on tight.

I yelped very unmanly-like at the contact, which only made her giggle louder. I rolled around so that my back was against the tree trunk. Bella's hands were nestled between us against my skin. My lips found hers hungrily as her nails dug into the flesh at my sides, gingerly tracing over a spot where she accidently clawed me several hours earlier. I nibbled at her lip then pushed her away, much to her dismay. She scowled an adorable, drunken grimace at me and I rolled my eyes. Even in my intoxication, nothing could mask how cute she could be. We continued walking until we heard a deep, authoritative voice ringing out the closer we got to the front of the house.

"I understand that, Dennis, but whether it's your kid's birthday or not, all these cars can't be here. I could barely fit through here myself, let alone anything bigger than a Crown Victoria. Move 'em…before I go in there and start ID'ing all those kids."

We both froze and looked at each other with wide eyes. Then, Bella snapped out of it and giggled, disrupting my momentary panic at being busted accosting the impaired daughter of a man who was legally licensed to fire at me. We stammered forward hesitantly and his sharp eyes bored into us. Bella blushed crimson. I swallowed hard and dug into my front pocket. I was planning on walking the short distance to Bella's house anyway, but as a sign of good faith, I dropped the keys to the old Volvo in the Chief's palm and nodded, only briefly looking up at him.

Bella's arm was still snaked inside my sweatshirt, her fingers warmed by my body heat. She intentionally tickled at my side as I exchanged looks with her father, trying to provoke me. I artfully ignored her and saw her pout out of the corner of my eye. She was wrecked.

I heard a gruff "harrumph" as we walked away giggling and wobbling.

~*SS*~

"Does this count as a table top," I moaned into her ear, my fingers popping open the button on her jeans.

Her low hum against my lips was her only reply. It was raining that annoying misty rain that was light enough to barely classify as precipitation but yet managed to seep into everything, including the wooden planks we were laying on.

_Fucking Forks._

"Oh no. Don't think you will be allowed to deprive me of my tabletop fantasy by counting this, Edward," she retorted, drawing a thin piece of skin from behind my ear into her wet mouth and sucking.

I moaned and pulled back to look at her. "I'm sorry…did you say _fantasy_?" I confirmed with widened eyes.

She nodded and pushed up onto her elbows to try and reach my mouth. I leaned back dodging her. "This is a conversation we will take up at a later time. Agreed?" I pressed my lips against hers quickly, not giving her time to reply, but I felt the vibration and smile against my mouth as she mumbled her willing compliance.

I shuffled her pants down far enough for my purposes, thankful that small, abandoned towns were good for some things. I silently tabulated my fantasies as I worked. I wrapped my hands around her thighs and pulled her closer to me to steer her clear of the top of the slide. Knowing who I was dealing with, Bella's luck could easily see her thrust down the slide to break a limb mid sex – which would be a real turn-off.

She giggled, reading my mind, and nodded before she wrapped her fingers around the posts on either edge of the landing to brace herself. She peered up at me and silently promised to hold on tight.

I stood on the level below where she lay. I played with her with my fingers, watching intently, constantly fascinated by her sounds and small expressions. She tightened around me and had barely crested before I slid my fingers out and my dick in. I was still a little drunk and having focusing issues. I was glad she came but I was also greedy for my own release.

I pushed myself into her deeply, almost roughly, accidently pushing her away from me with the force. I held my hands up, palms facing her, fingers spread wide in invitation. Without a word, she understood what I was asking and her dainty hands slid into mine. I squeezed around hers and used them to hold her in place as I pumped in and out of her desperately. The mist continued to swirl around us, sticking our hair to our foreheads and creating a thin sheen of moisture on any exposed skin.

To be honest…I didn't remember finishing.

Three hours later we were plodding along the seven small blocks from the elementary school playground to Bella's house. The sky was lightening above us, a creamy shade of pale blue and gray. The hour was still early enough that all the trees and buildings on the horizon were nothing but a black silhouette against the creeping brightness.

I held her hand in one of mine as the other scrubbed at my face, scratching away the sleep in my eyes and the sloppy hangover from every crevice. My head was pounding and I would have given anything to be sound asleep. The muscles in my back were rioting and my neck was so stiff I couldn't look to the left without hissing and wincing. A quick survey of Bella confirmed that she was feeling about the same, though she had a silly smile on her face that made me smile in return despite my acidic, tired mood.

I would love to have said that the four or five hours we spent at the old wooden playground outside the brick schoolyard was entirely consumed with making love to Bella over…but the sad truth was that I was too sloppy and drunk to do much aside from a few quick thrusts before I passed out next to her on the wooden platform of the jungle gym. Thank Christ she came once before I greedily took without giving much or I would be forced to wonder if the conversation earlier in the evening about her "wanting more" really _was _code for unsatisfied. As it was, she looked happy…really fucking tired…but happy, so I didn't dwell on it.

I had just opened my mouth to make promises for something better later in the day once we were rested when she unintentionally cut me off.

"Oooh! We should go bowling later!" she screeched, ripping her hand out of mine and clapping excitedly as we passed by the Sunset Bowling lanes. We only had a few blocks to go and my mind was at capacity trying to decide whether or not I was going to try and find my way home to sleep or just pass out at Bella's.

I pulled my cell from my pocket to check the time. It was just after four AM. I knew Charlie would be getting off his shift soon. I also had a text message. It was from my mother.

_Should I be worried? _– _Mom_

I quickly typed "no" and sent it. I flipped the phone shut, shoved it back in my pocket, and then realised my feet were no longer moving. Stupidly, I blinked a few times and then looked up at Bella. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her lips pursed at me. I smiled. I was too tired to raise both corners of my mouth. Her face softened and she rolled her eyes and began walking again. Then, I remembered she had said something.

We continued walking quietly, wobbling from sleep deprivation and leftover intoxication as we made our way down the familiar streets of the small town to her house. Every home was painted nicely, most with blooming gardens and immaculate lawns and shrubs. There were mailboxes with names we had known our entire lives on the sides. I dug into my murky mind and tried to recall what Bella had said.

The gravel crunched under our feet as we walked up to her porch.

"Bowling?" I asked and ran my fingers through my hair, yawning wide without covering my mouth, and then blinking to clear away the blurry moisture. She nodded energetically and stood on her tippy toes to reach above the door for the spare key.

_You would seriously think that a Police Chief would place his hide-a-key in a less obvious spot._

I reached out automatically to wrap my fingers around her waist to steady her as she patted blindly along the top of the door jamb for the key. I rolled my eyes and shook my head at her. She finally had a key made for herself a few years ago, but it did little good when she left the key ring on her nightstand every time we went out.

The hidden key was always in the same spot, far right. She _always _fished around for it about six inches too far left. I wasn't sure if it was just because she was too short to comprehend where her little fingers where patting at, or if she only did it when I was there because she thought it was funny to test my patience.

I growled and reached above her head, the front of my body leaning into her back as I grabbed the key on the first shot, pushed her aside with my hand still at her hip, and unlocked the door. With a falsely sweet smile on my face I reached back up to replace the key, six inches left of where it was supposed to be kept.

She rolled her eyes at me but smiled innocently. I was too tired to tell her how adorably annoying she was, so I settled on smacking her ass in order to scurry her through the open doorway. She squealed but moved accordingly.

Once in the house I literally took four steps and fell roughly onto the couch face first. It was as old as shit but it had character and was immensely comfortable when half-drunk, half-hung over, and supremely exhausted.

"Edward." A pretty, little voice whined from somewhere above the back of my head. I heard her hopping around from foot to foot as she pulled her sneakers off. My body felt heavy and even though my mind was slightly distracted by her, I was too tired to fight the pull of sleep She muttered some more increasingly indiscernible noises as I slowly floated away. She may have huffed and kicked me in the side lightly before I heard her feisty little footsteps against the stairwell. And I was asleep…but only momentarily.

"Go away," I grumble-yelled through the muffle of the pillow as my shoulders shook under someone's force. I reached out to my side swatted at whoever was disturbing me. My head swam and I was not physically stable enough to be awake yet, I needed much more time to sleep everything off. Too say I was annoyed would have been an understatement.

I heard heavy footsteps leave and then come back. Then my brain fucking rattled against the walls of my skull as a throw pillow smashed against the back of my head. I growled and flipped over, blinking fiercely against the daylight.

Charlie stood over me with his nostrils flaring. He had a look in his eyes that instantly told me to sit up and fight back whatever nausea was sure to hit me, because it would be minor compared to the repercussions of telling him to "go away" again.

"She's upstairs asleep," Charlie mumbled.

_No shit. _

I blinked.

_He better have a better reason for waking me up than to state the fucking obvious._

The look on my face must have given away my thoughts because he smacked me in the head again with pillow. I reached up, a moment too late to defend myself, but managed to rip it out of his hands and laid back down face first, burying my head with the stolen pillow.

I braved it again. "Go away."

"Not feeling so good there, Edward," he grumbled and kicked the leg of the couch just below my head.

_I should have gone home to sleep._

"Why's she upstairs and you aren't? D'you two have a fight or something?"

_Is he serious with this shit right now? _Bella and I never fought.

"Couch was closer," I growled into the pillow. "Please, fuck off…_sir_."

He grumble-hummed, satisfied I hadn't fought with his daughter, and dropped my keys on my head. The impact and deafening clang of the metal hit my skull and almost made me throw up on his boots. Mercifully, he walked away and let me be after that.

I awoke much later to the sweet smell of something syrupy and delicious coming from the kitchen. Silverware clanged rhythmically at what sounded like someone unloading the dishwasher into the drawer. Some plates rattled and a cupboard shut.

"You need a new coffee pot dad, this one is so shot it's embarrassing. I don't know how you're even drinking that stuff. It burns every batch no matter how quickly you pull the carafe off."

It was Bella's sweet voice. I could hear how rested she was and I was thankful. I scrubbed at my eyes, not yet ready to get up. I noticed I had the old quilted blanket that Renee had made when Bella was a baby thrown across my legs. It was always kept in the linen closet at the top of the stairs. It made me smile quietly.

"The _what?"_

"Carafe, dad. You know, the pitcher-thingy…never mind."

"I should go in there and dump this burnt coffee on his stupid sleeping head."

"You absolutely should _not, _thank you very much."

I bristled. I was awake now. And apparently, I was in trouble. _Shit._

Charlie muttered something too low for me to hear and a cupboard slammed.

"Dad, he isn't reckless. He wasn't going to drive regardless of whether or not you showed up. He only handed you his keys because you were ordering the cars to be moved down the street."

More muttering.

"Dad?"

Silence.

"Shut up and eat your French toast."

_That's my girl. _

I stood up and folded the blanket and tossed it against the back of the couch, and then shuffled into the kitchen. I pulled back the chair next to Charlie and smiled at him.

"Do I get some French toast?" I asked, spinning my head around to see Bella already making me a plate. Normally, I would feel bad, but she looked to be showered and in much better condition than me, so I happily let her wait on me.

"You can have some _coffee_," Charlie muttered into his mug without looking up. I snorted at him, forcing his eyes to meet mine. He wasn't actually mad, just being a dad, which I respected. If Bella was _my _daughter I probably would have her shackled to her bedpost…

_Fantasy._

Shit. That wasn't what I meant, but my mind was sleepy and unfocused.

My ears reddened at their tips, which Charlie misinterpreted to mean I felt abashed about how drunk and foolish I was the night before. I had no doubt that he somehow knew precisely what time we finally strolled into the house at, in his keen Police Chief-father sort of way. He nodded at me and I happily allowed him to think whatever he wanted.

My exchange with Charlie ended when two soft lips met my temple and I turned around to see Bella setting down two plates on the table. I beamed at her as she sat down.

"Thanks," I mouthed almost silently, my head still hurting. "And thanks for the blanket."

Bella smiled and a throat cleared awkwardly beside me.

"Oh," she said, taking a bite off her plate and becoming deliberately distracted by the dripping syrup off her fork. "That wasn't me." She looked pointedly at her father.

I turned and smirked at him…the old Charlatan. He glared and scooted away from the table. He dropped his full mug into the sink and left the kitchen silently.

"Be home by six!" Bella shouted after him, hearing his boots being slipped on in the entryway. It was his day off and was he headed to the reserve to spend it either fishing.

A garbled noise was muttered back and the door closed. I glanced at the digital clock on the stove, noticing it was not quite noon yet.

"What's at six?" I asked, reaching out to pull her chair closer to mine and drape my arm around her.

She took a bite of my toast, having finished her plate already and smiled around the fork tines as she gave me her "duh" face.

"Bowling," she said poking at another piece of toast. I grimaced and pushed her away before she ate all my breakfast. She giggled as I extended my legs, sliding her back to the other end of the table with a loud screech across the linoleum.

~*SS*~

"Babe, I'm just saying, I don't think…" My brother was abruptly cut off by a loud wail of exasperation as his wife threw her arms in the air and spun on her feet.

"Carrrrrliiiiisle!" she hollered throughout the house, her cheeks growing redder each time she yelled for my father.

I was biting into an apple and leaning against the doorframe that sat between the living room and the kitchen. My brother plopped down dejectedly onto the edge of the coffee table.

"Oh," I chewed on my apple, "you're fucked now."

He spun around with wide eyes, shaking his head. His palm hit his forehead as he slumped forward balancing his elbows on his knees. I laughed heartily, earning myself a death-glare from my big brother.

Frantic footsteps rushed down the back staircase behind me and I turned around to see my fathers troubled features twisted up with worry.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

I shook my head at him to silently indicate there was no trouble, chomping on a big piece of apple that prevented me from saying more. I moved to the side to clear the doorway and pointed to my brother, who was muttering into his palms still staring at the floor.

Just as my dad entered the living room and Emmett looked up, Rosalie rounded the corner from the den behind the living room. She saw my dad and sighed.

"Carlisle, there you are," she huffed, her palm flat against the underside of her belly pressing into it. "Can you please tell your barbarous clod of a son that being pregnant does _not _make me an invalid." She crossed her arms over her chest and stared daggers at my brother.

I took a loud bite of my apple and leaned against the doorjamb again with a goofy smile, chewing and watching the entertaining display.

"Now Emmett," my father began. "You know better than to assume that just because Rosalie is pregnant does _not _mean that..."

He was promptly cut off by my brother, who stood a good several inches taller than me, making him nearly a foot taller than my father, not to mention much, much larger. He leapt from the coffee table with his face in a scowl toward him.

"_Bowling, _Dad! Really?" He shot a look to Rosalie who scrunched her face up and glowered back.

"Oh." My father ran his fingers through his hair and sighed heavily. He removed his reading glasses and kneaded the bridge of his nose. It struck me as I watched him how closely my mannerisms mirrored his. He turned to face a smug-looking Rosalie. Her face fell before he even spoke.

"Dear, bowling might be one of the few exceptions you may want to consider sitting out. That and, you know, sky-diving and those sorts of things." My poor father was trying to make a joke to loosen the scowl from her face, but it fell flat. Nothing but the arrogant and suicidal grunt from my brother permeated the thick silence.

I paused mid-chew, sensing blood shed when Emmett nodded emphatically behind my dad and yelled, "See!" at his angry wife. He was such a moron. I was thankful Rosalie was standing in the middle of the room with nothing heave-worthy within arms reach or she would have maimed my brother for sure.

"You are chauvinistic jackasses," she cried and marched toward the kitchen. She didn't handle been told what to do very well. I moved to the side quickly. "Don't follow me, any of you! I am placing a conversation moratorium on all Cullen males today. You can all go to hell."

She shoved past me and I couldn't help myself. "Hey, what'd I do?"

She spun on her little ballet slipper and glowered at me. I raised my hands in instant surrender and she marched away. I laughed and entered the living room where my father and brother stood shaking their heads at each other. I had a dopey smile on my face that completely contradicted the atmosphere of the room.

"Oh…you just wait, asshole," my brother sneered at me. "You think it's funny now…" He stormed through the kitchen door in search of his wife, despite her request… because he was a fucking imbecile.

My dad turned to me with wide, satiric eyes. He shook his head and smiled as we both thought the same thing.

_Hormonal women are a force to be reckoned with. _

"So…I golfed with Dennis today," he said, moving on.

_Here we go…_

"You golfed in this shit?" I tried to deflect, pointing out the window to the grey mist swirling around the pines.

He chuckled and sat down in a chair in the corner of the room, flipping open the book he had been carrying to a dog-eared page. He looked back up at me from over the tops of his glasses and said, "Yeah well…we're dedicated."

I was sure the matter was not over. So I sat. Patient. I had always sucked at being patient. I could feel his eyes on me. I was about to say something snarky about just spitting it out already when he cleared his throat and launched into the lecture that I knew was coming.

"My point _was, _Edward, that I love hearing from my golf-buddy about the display my son entertained everyone with the night before." His voice dripped with sarcasm, which was a rare device for my father.

I scoffed. "Yeah well, my restraint left sometime around my eighth beer, so…"

"So you decided to put on a show for everyone and flaunt something that is apparently so private that not even your own family feels comfortable discussing it with you?"

"No, dad, it wasn't like that… Shit, is that what everyone thinks, that they can't talk to me about anything that has to do with me and Bella?"

I felt horrible. Not about the display at the party, that seemed par for the course with a group of drunken twenty-three year olds on summer break. But it broke my heart a little to think that anyone in my family felt they couldn't come to me if there was something that they wanted to discuss – even if it was about _me. _That wasn't the kind of family that we had… that my parents had worked so hard to forge. We had an open and trusting family, one that valued and respected each other. I appreciated the irony, given my dishonesty over the years, but that was an unintentional avoidance, not a downright mistrust.

"Well, no, I don't think so, Edward. I didn't mean it _literally. _ I don't think anyone feels you have alienated the topic or yourselves or anything. To be honest, son, I don't think anyone gives it very much thought. You and Bella are just _you _and _Bella. _I'm sure everyone understands you have extracurriculars that you don't parade around…" He paused to clear his throat dramatically. "…usually. But no, to answer your question, I don't think that anyone feels they can't speak to you if they wanted to. I was just trying to make a point."

"Oh, well, consider your point made. Thank you." I glared at him half-heartedly as he smiled and shook his head at me.

"Although your mom and I _did _expect you home at some point. She was a little worried when we hadn't heard from you at all. You know you're mother. You usually let us know if you won't be home."

My cheeks and neck flushed in shame. "I'm sorry. I'll make sure to call next time. This was…unexpected."

"Yeah, well. Where _were _you last night anyway?" he asked, ignoring the pages spread open on his lap. "Charlie was under the impression that you weren't at his house last time I spoke with him."

I flopped down on the couch, balancing my apple core on the coffee table. I scrubbed my palms over my face and smiled. "Uhh…the park?" It came out like a question. My eyes narrowed as I laughed under my breath at how ridiculous it sounded.

"Aren't you a bit old for all that?" he questioned, the seriousness of his tone cutting into me, causing me to straighten up in my seat. I knew he was referring to far more than the obvious joke about the playground.

I nodded thoughtfully. "Yes…I think I am," I murmured staring at my hands as they fingered the abandoned apple and my mind splintered off in thought.

~*SS*~

Later that night, long after the bowling excitement where Rosalie sat on the sidelines with my mother who could not bowl to save her life, pouting and grumbling insults at her husband's game. After Emmett had to catch Bella from falling when her slippery shoes combined with her slippery self-preservation capabilities and she nearly fell on her ass with a bowling ball crushing her head. After my brother gave his wife a pointed look that indicated the fall could have been her and Rosalie made a comment about how it was _Bella _and to be expected_, _which earned a scoff but also a nod of acceptance from the victim in question. After I thanked my brother for saving my girl from herself with a few rounds of beers and after Charlie and my dad wiped the floor with all of us kids. After all of that…we were safely snuggled in downstairs watching TV and eating junk food.

Despite it being late July, the weather sucked. It was rainy and chilly and the cold was the kind that crawled into your bones and stayed there. I was desperate to escape it. Everyone bickered over what to watch, deciding ultimately to appease Rosalie and the girls after all the huffing over not being allowed to bowl, and to play a bunch of episodes off the TiVo of some girly melodrama.

It was the kind of show where every teenager had everything bad that could ever possibly occur in anyone's youth happen to them all over the course of one season. Everyone walked around giving out award-worthy soliloquies at the perfect time for their nemesis to hear their confessions and blackmail them. The kind of craptastic show where no one was ever faithful, and any time two people kissed someone was around the corner to accidently see it and implode with jealousy. The show was giving me a legitimate migraine by the fourth episode.

Even though I was warm and comfortable with Bella curled up in the recliner with me, leaning against my chest as both our legs extended out onto the ottoman, I refused to watch the lame TV show. Instead, spent the time running my fingers through Bella's hair, twisting it around my finger, and braiding chunks of it at the bottom – anything to touch her and ignore the TV. I had given up wondering what everyone thought about us a long time ago.

Eventually, I could take no more and had run out of PG ways to entertain myself in the lounger. I lifted Bella up, stood, and then seated her back down into the chair, tucking her fleece blanket around her.

"I gotta get the fuck outta here, I'm sorry. I can actually feel my brain cells deteriorating the longer I sit here and endure this shit," I muttered as I walked away.

"Language, Edward," my mother scolded without lifting her eyes from the scene on the screen. She was sitting next to Rosalie on the couch beside me, holding her hand comfortingly like only a mother could. I felt bad, I normally watch my mouth around my mother, but I was tired and distracted and still slightly hung over. I pat her head as I walked by in apology.

Emmett quickly agreed and he was right behind me as I rounded the corner to the staircase.

"Hey!" Bella called after me absently. "I happen to like this show by the way."

I hung onto the banister and leaned forward to make eye contact with her, smirking. "Yes well…I think I might love you just a little bit less for that, baby," I gestured with my fingers inched together and winked at her. She pouted and rolled her eyes but went back to the show after Rosalie shushed her loudly.

Emmett practically shoved me up the stairs. "Now or never, bro, escape!"

We settled ourselves in the kitchen, hearing the ruckus coming from upstairs where the two bowling victors were hiding in the library. A large bang billowed down the stairs, followed by uproarious laughter. Emmett and I met eyes over the kitchen counter.

"I swear those two..." Em muttered under his breath, not necessarily to me.

I just chuckled and twisted the caps off two beers and handed him one.

"I thought you made a vow of sobriety today, bro? Hair of the dog or what the fuck ever."

We clanked bottle necks in cheers and both took swigs.

"Meh." I shrugged. "So...Rosalie seems to have forgiven you," I hedged with wide eyes as I took a long pull from my beer. I was just fucking with him. She was still pissy. As we left the media room she flipped him off without looking.

Emmett chuckled. "She'll get over it."

"You excited?" I asked.

He nodded thoughtfully. "I'm excited. Nervous…but excited," he admitted.

"Yeah," I agreed, assuming he was referring to fragile little humans that cried and were utterly dependant on you to keep them alive. But then he got a serious look and took a seat at the bar in front of where I stood at the sink sipping my beer.

"Like... I've never really been the one who's good at shit, you know? Alice has always been the graceful one and the crowd pleaser. You're the one who who's smart and learned the fucking piano, and paid attention when mom put us in those stupid-ass cooking and ballroom dancing classes. You're in Med School and gonna be a mind-fucker...I mean..."

"Hey!" I interrupted him with a stern face. "That's doctor mind-fucker, to you." I smirked obnoxiously at him and winked. "Em, cut this shit out, you're good at stuff. Football? Can you picture me as an All-State left tackle?"

He snorted loudly nearly shooting beer from his nose.

"Exactly, my point," I muttered glaring at him. "You're funny, easy-going, and you relate to people really well. I imagine those things make for a damn good parent, man. You'll be just fine."

"I know, I just don't wanna fuck this up. I wanna do it right. I want this little shit to love me, and trust and respect me, you know?"

"Well...then you're talking to the wrong man," I said nodding toward upstairs where our father sat.

"Oh, we talk plenty, believe me. But he's so vague every time I ask him questions. Saying annoying shit like 'you'll just know' and 'do what feels right'," he laughed.

"Well, you'll have Rosalie too, so...she'll keep you're dumb ass in line," I joked, smiling warmly at him so he knew I believed in him too.

After a few more minutes of chatter Rosalie came upstairs with the girls trailing behind her. She was rubbing the underside of her belly and wincing.

"I'm tired and my belly aches. Can we go?" she asked Em in a sweet voice, leaning her head on his shoulder and curling into him. I smirked at the mercurial hormones of the glowing one. Em pat her belly affectionately and winked at me.

We said our good-byes and everyone filtered out. Soon, I was contentedly curled up on the couch in the den by a roaring fire with Bella.

She crawled over to me, sitting on my lap to straddle me. She was so beautiful. The fire glowed against her skin and even if the room was growing far too warm, I just wasn't willing to put it out and lose the imagery. She smiled softly at me and walked her fingers up my chest. Her delicate hands slid over my jaw and cupped my face.

"The baby was rolling around like crazy after you went upstairs. I felt it…so amazing," she said in a hushed voice suitable for the atmosphere just inches from my face.

"It is. I can't believe I'm going to be an uncle. I'm going to spoil the hell outta that thing."

"_Thing,_" Bella giggled at me, brushing my cheek back and forth with her fingertips.

I smiled at her with heavy lids, lacing my fingers against the back of her neck and pulling her closer to me. I licked my lips in anticipation, eager to feel the soft fullness of her lips against mine.

I leaned in to kiss her but was stopped as her hand brusquely palmed my face. She reached behind her to pull something from her back pocket.

"I believe this is yours?" she asked in a mischievous voice.

"Nope," I shook my head. "It's in your possession right now. That makes it yours."

She hummed and slid the little brown and teal business card down the collar of my tee shirt.

"Well then, I'd like to redeem it now."

She leaned down and slid her fingers up to my hair, twining them in deep and pulling me closer. Her mouth met mine and the room instantly grew much, much warmer as my skin caught fire in a very predictable reaction to her touch. Her tongue pushed past my lips and played with mine and our mouths moved in practiced perfection.

It was a game we had been playing for the last month since we had come home from our respective corners of the country. The business card was swiped from Daniel on our Valentine's dinner and I had written in black sharpie on the back in all caps, "KISS ME NOW!"

I left it in her bag the night she left New York. The first thing she did when she got off the plane last month was march over to me, drag me by the sleeve of my shirt around the corner slightly, but not completely, away from the prying eyes of my sister and Jasper who had come with me to the airport. She passed me back the card and kissed me with everything she had.

Since then it had been a fun game of sneaking the card into her purse, or my back pocket, under her pillow at Charlie's house, or tacked to the wall over my bed.

Her hands pushed up my shirt and her lips fell to my neck, sucking and kissing behind my ear. I groaned and squeezed her hips as she moved over me. She moaned my name in my ear as her tongue licked around the edge and I knew I was a goner. I had little to no restraint for all things _Bella_.

We'd had more sex than either of us could keep track of since summer had started, but somehow we never tired. It was the opposite actually. I fucking craved her. Every second away from her was sheer agony. Yet, every moment shared with her was paradise. Every time I moved inside her I was home. The more I had her, the more I needed her. The more I took, the more I gave of myself.

"People are still awake," I murmured against her lips, withdrawing only for a second to draw in a haggard breath. My words were hushed and weak and I ground her hips into me as I said them, belying my intent.

"Never stopped us before," she breathed around my lips and tongue.

I moved her jeans down just enough to let me in while she freed me. I pushed into her after gliding a finger through her to feel how slick she was. We both sighed in collective relief as our bodies melted into one another, the restraint of clothing unimportant as all that mattered was our connection. I kissed her deeply, looking into her eyes. I saw every time she flinched with suppressed pleasure or smiled against my lips each time I nibbled at her.

The sensations we created in each other, the emotions we stirred…they were unparalleled. The ice and heat and sharp and soft all swirled deep inside us until it crescendoed magically. Our relationship was perfect in all of its flaws and I wouldn't have traded it for the world. It was what we made it. And it was love.

Together, we _made _love.

* * *

Does the chapter title make sense?

It does to me.

I'm fleeing the country this weekend to my ten year HS reunion, but rest assured, the next installment is already written and will post as usual on Thursday.

DONT FORGET THE ONE-SHOT!

You all owe it to me to read it as payback for the demanded expansion on this "one-shot" which has now taken over my life.

Assholes.

LMAO

(I hope you know me well enough at this point to appreciate that that is a term of endearment when coming from me)

Kisses.

Air

xox


	28. Close Your Eyes

RL has been a demanding harpy. I'm sorry.

I think with the fall things will begin to settle down a bit. Have patience with me as I continue to try and maintain my weekly updates.

Also...it may seem like we are plateauing a little bit here...but the groundwork just has to be lain for the future.

The future is exciting.

I posted my Twinklings one shot here, so be sure to check that out and give me some love if you like.

As always, I read every review and try to respond to most. They honestly make my day. I love them as much as I love these two kids.

And a special thanks to Monika who is a pillar of patience in my goldfish bowl.

~xox~

* * *

After the night we passed out half naked on the elementary school playground equipment my mind had been nothing but chaos. It was building for months inside me, but that last drunken, juvenile act and my father's words of subtle wisdom had sent my psyche into overdrive.

"_You're a bit old for all this, don't you think?" _

I agreed wholeheartedly. I _was_ too old for "this". All the bullshit and sneaking and waiting and being miserable. It was getting old and time just kept ticking without any change to help see me through.

I wanted so much more. That was where the problem lay. If I thought too much about what I _was_ old enough for and everything I truly longed for, a sharp swell of anger would begin to toss about inside of my gut and pull at the delicate strings that hung from my heart.

My ache to remain near Bella, coupled with everything that had transpired over Mother's Day weekend, had my emotions and thoughts on edge. Everything was dark and urgent and swirling around in my head demanding attention. My hands were constantly shaking with a quiet anxiety and my mind refused to just let me be. Once thoughts invaded my head they were there to stay until I worked them out for myself. I kept having nightmares that I couldn't remember once I awoke, but that left me with an unsettling feeling for the rest of the day.

The powerless feeling that went along with wanting shit you couldn't have was enough to tip me over the ledge that I had always balanced on since I was a child – that knife edge of brooding dramatics that made all my loved ones worry whenever they saw the anxiety tiptoe in on me, but in the end, solved nothing. So I tried my hardest to force it down into a distant crevice inside myself. The rage, the pain, the subjection and all the wants – the urgent, desperate wants – the beautiful, precious things that my heart and my fingertips craved. All the things I tingled for, the things that made me smile into the dark, empty New York air during the lonesome hours of the night when my thoughts ran unguarded.

I found myself constantly scheming, trying to invent approaches that would be the best for both myself and Bella – ways we could stay in the same state for longer than a few weeks at a time. Unfortunately, it was always to no avail, so I tried to reassure myself of the words I had professed so confidently to my father not even a year ago.

"_We__'re __both__muddling through. __W__e have our heads down and we're just pushing forward, trying to get through the next few years until we can be in the same place at the same time and focus on being together properly. We've waited our entire lives to have each other like this...we can survive a couple more years if that's all it takes. Then, I can happily claim everything I have ever wanted. Bella will be a Cullen someday, I promise."_

The things I longed for were put on a shelf for a later date. I would claim them with everything I had one day, but I couldn't have them just yet. That was just the way the cards had unfolded for me.

I could wait. For those things, for _her, _I could be a patient man. I could be everything she deserved. That was what love was – digging deep inside to pull out the qualities that usually lay dormant. All the things that made me a better man, a better friend and lover, but that were difficult to put into practice every day. Love made me want to be all of those things and more.

However, it was all taking its toll on me and I knew Bella and I had to talk, and soon. I just needed it. Something had to give.

That was what brought me to Bella's doorstep.

I needed to get away and I needed to do it with her. We had always been one another's anchor. She held me to everything that mattered in my life and reminded me just by being within arm's reach that everything would be alright. As long as she was there with me then I had everything I could ever want and the rest would ultimately work itself out. Sometimes I just got the best of myself and needed Bella to help soothe me.

My entire family, Charlie, and Rosalie's parents and cousin had a huge camping trip booked for the beginning of August. We weren't planning on going anywhere too far, considering Rosalie was literally going to burst into labour at any second, just something fun to get away for a bit. But I need to get away with Bella alone first. I had no idea how she was going to help me or what she would say to me, but that was what made me need her so much – she always knew how to still my mind even when I didn't. It didn't matter where we went; I just needed to be alone with her. I needed to breathe in that steady, peaceful air and feel the gentle whir of energy as it coursed through me at her proximity.

Her scent currently filled the steamy little room – strawberry and coconut and something soft and sweet that I could never put my finger on but was always just so _Bella_. It brought a gentle smile to my lips and I closed my eyes and just let the scent and the humidity begin its slow course of pulling at the tight restraints that bound my mind.

_Bella._

"Close your eyes," I requested with a smooth yet firm voice so that she would be able to hear me.

I may have scared the life right out of her. She screamed and her palm hit the wet glass with a thud. Obviously, I hadn't thought my actions though very carefully.

The sudden burst of inspiration had hit as I was seated at the old piano in my parents front room, distractedly poking at the keys with my fingers. The tinkling of the keys had distracted my mind just enough to let an errant idea break through. I was in the car almost immediately. However, I should have realised that storming Bella's bathroom while she was in the shower and thought she was alone in the house was practically asking for a trip to see my father in the ER.

Luckily, she just shrieked and then muttered some mild obscenities after recognising my voice while she beat her fist against the tile a few times. She eventually opened the shower door and glared at me with everything she had. It was still adorable and in no way menacing, but I switched my amused grin to something that looked slightly more repentant. I blinked and gave her my narrowed-eye "I'm sorry" smirk.

"Do you ever knock?" she asked, peeking her wet head around the edge of the door. Her eyes were bright and her lips were red. She was startled and annoyed, but happy to see me and just being playful.

I shook my head "no" while leaning forward on my toes to peer behind the door at her naked body. I had one brow arched high as I licked my lips appreciatively and smirked at her. My eyes swept up and down her skin deviously.

She smacked the top of my head, sending droplets of water against my cheeks and dabbling against the paper in my hands.

"Hey! Careful," I scolded, jumping back.

I shook the paper to clear the water off and held my arm out to the side to further protect it and also to hide it from her view. I ducked in toward the shower to kiss her, but then I remembered something and forced myself to stop at the last minute, just as my nose brushed hers.

Bella pouted.

Dark strings of her wet hair snaked around her shoulders and neck. I watched in awe as they slid down her cheeks, over her lips, across her breasts and down past her hipbones. The moisture pooled at her toes near the drain. I licked my lips again on instinct and forgot everything about why I was even standing there in the first place. My eyes glossed over as I looked at her, seeing so much more than just a gloriously wet woman in front of me – which brought me back to my task and the paper in my hand.

I tried to say something but her wet fingers had begun tracing lines along my neck and the tops of my shoulders, dampening my tee shirt and stirring particular parts of me. My voice didn't work on the first try so I cleared my throat, ignored her amused giggles, and took a step back to try again.

"Okay, _please_, Bella, will you close your eyes for me."

As was to be expected with Bella, her curiosity was piqued and she did the exact opposite of what I asked.

_She __is so predictable._

Her fingers stilled near the collar of my shirt while her other hand pressed into my chest. She balanced on the balls of her feet to try and lean out of shower and look at what I held in my hand.

"Eh, eh, eh," I scolded. "Just do as I say and nobody gets hurt."

She snorted and rolled her eyes, but fell back onto her heels and complied. Once her eyes were safely closed, I unfolded the paper and refolded it loudly so it was precisely the way I wanted it. I glanced at Bella and snickered at the way her face was all twisted up in confusion as she tried in vain to decipher the sound.

"Okay, now give me your hand, please," I asked nicely, but my impatience got the best of me and I ended up reaching down and taking her hand in mine before she could move it herself. I pushed her hand into a fist except for her index finger, which I pressed lightly to a wet pad of black ink that I stole from my mother's desk drawer.

"Uhh…?" she murmured as her finger became wet, unsure of what I was up to.

"Shh. Okay, now just stick your finger out and touch anywhere in front of you," I asked, holding the paper up.

She giggled and a sweet blush crept up her cheeks as she had less than pure thoughts. Then, she shook her head at my silly antics, but stopped when she nearly fell over from the disorientation of having her eyes closed. I grabbed at her shoulder and asked her to politely hurry the fuck up and touch her finger to the paper before someone really _did _get hurt.

Her arm extended cautiously and her finger made contact with the paper. I flipped it over immediately and began folding it back up without looking at it.

"A map?" she asked opening her eyes and blinking at me.

"Hey, did I say you could your eyes yet?" I scolded.

She mashed her lips together in a sign of silence, a smile tugging up both corners of her mouth despite her best efforts. Something heady flashed in her eyes and I knew I wasn't going to be able to ignore the building tension for much longer. I figured I should answer her and make it quick – clearly, there were better things to get around to.

"Yes, a map. I already talked to your dad on the way here. He doesn't have anything for the two of you planned between now and the camping trip, so...I'm taking you somewhere. Just the two of us."

I couldn't help the trill of excitement that shot through me at my last words. From the look of things Bella felt the same energy spring through her. We had been together since summer started two months before, but still…there was never enough time alone and unhurried. We both felt the desire to reclaim our intimacy as the summer wore on.

"Where are we going?" she asked with an excited smile.

"I don't know, you tell me," I joked and held up the refolded map, swatting her nose with it playfully before withdrawing it from her wet, reaching fingertips.

I tossed the map on the edge of the counter and then turned to look at her more seriously. "I miss you, even though we've been together…you know? I think our trips to see each other during the year have spoiled me. I need so much more than all this usual crap now." I smiled though I knew it didn't reach my eyes. It was a troubled yet sincere explanation and I hoped that it made sense because I wasn't sure how else to word it. I knew in my heart that she would understand. She felt what I felt…always.

Her eyes melted and spread through her entire body as I watched her turn from excited to compassionate. Her smile was warm and her body relaxed. She reached out to wrap her arms around my neck. The action felt so warm and wonderful that I didn't care how wet I got or that I had nothing to change into. Just before her lips found mine I pulled back again, denying the contact just as I had a moment ago. I dug into my back pocket and produced my "kiss me now" card with a wink.

She giggled but told me to keep it since she didn't have anywhere appropriate to stash it at the time. I agreed, my eyes sweeping over her body from head to toe and back again until they met hers. And with that everything else was momentarily abandoned and my clothes became very wet regardless...from their place at the bottom of the shower stall.

Charlie was working dailies, the opposite of his usual five PM to five AM schedule, so he would be gone all day. After sitting wrapped in towels on Bella's bed for over an hour talking excitedly about the idea of a mystery trip away together, we decided it would be a good idea to scoop my clothes up off the floor of the shower and throw them into the dryer downstairs.

Bella secured the fluffy purple towel around her and took her hamper into the bathroom to gather my things. I tied my equally fluffy and purple towel around my waist and followed her down the stairs.

I came into the mud room just as she was bent over closing the dryer door. It took me all of half a minute to become insatiably aroused again. I grabbed her hips roughly and spun her around and lifted her to the top of the dyer.

"Edward!" she screeched wide and alarmed eyes. "Can you please stop trying to give me a heart attack? I'm too young to go out like that." She giggled and pressed the button to begin the dryer cycle, but something in her words upset me.

I didn't try to decipher it, my mind and emotions had been an unexplainable torrent for weeks. So I ignored it and grabbed her at the back of her head instead. My fingers tangled in the damp hair and I lay into her, my hips meeting her knees as she rest on the edge of the dryer. Her legs opened at the same time that her lips parted, meeting mine. Her towel slipped.

I spent what felt like hours just kissing the sweet scented skin at the junction of her shoulder and neck and then down the valley between her breasts. Her arms extended behind her and she rest against her flat palms with her head thrown back, humming and murmuring as she enjoyed my affections. Her legs wrapped around me and her feet pushed at my towel until it hit floor. I hissed as the head of my cock met the cold metal in front of me.

My hands slid down her back, along her sides and came to rest at her hips as I cradled them gently, atoning for my earlier haste. I drew a pert little nipple into my mouth and suckled at it, coercing a low moan from her. I felt her toes curl where they tickled at the small of my back. My fingers knead her flesh softly as I laved. Emotions coursed thick through my veins as my heart strum out. Bella's fingers twirled in my hair just as I bent lower to taste her. My head lolled into her hand at the touch and my eyes closed. The feeling was an instant balm on my nerves. My hands slid from her hips to her thighs and I worked slow, tender circles with my thumbs at the inner flesh.

After a few minutes, Bella pushed off the hand that was supporting her and bent toward me. With both hands curled deep into my hair she lifted me to face her. My eyes only held the slightest of questions for a moment until they met hers and I had my answers. Bella knew me well. She knew when something was bothering me and she always knew how to fix me. I obviously needed to talk it out, but she would wait until I was ready. In the meantime, she held my face in her hands and her eyes on mine with something so soft yet piercing that it nearly took my breath away.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine, her fingertips circling my scalp soothingly. Disregarding her own taste that was still on my tongue, she welcomed my kiss. Our lips moved together perfectly for several minutes until we pulled back for more air. Without breaking her gaze and bent down and finished what I started.

Afterward, I held her in my arms as she balanced on the edge of the dryer laying against me and we both came down from the high of our climax. My lips moved up and down the sensitive skin at the side of her neck while her fingernails scratched lightly against my spine.

Once the dryer sounded I dressed and sent her upstairs to do the same. It was lunchtime and I drove us back to my place to get something to eat and inform my parents of the impending trip.

Bella made us sandwiches I ran upstairs and returned my mother's inkpad to her desk. When I came back down she was just returning everything back to the refrigerator. I hopped off the steps and sidled up to her, pinching her pretty little ass cheek just for kicks. She glared, but it was an empty threat.

"There's no apple juice, do you want grape juice or milk?" she asked, already pouring two cups of milk. It was a joke. I hate grape juice, it's full of sugar and makes me feel like I'm four years old or something.

I just winked at her and hopped up onto the counter between the fridge and the stovetop. I grabbed one sandwich off the plate and sunk my teeth in just as Bella squirmed in between my thighs. She waggled her eyebrows suggestively at me.

"Well this is a fun role reversal," she murmured, wiggling against my crotch as she bit her lip.

"Don't even. My parent's will be back any minute. I think that would be quite the rude awakening," I joked.

She pouted but bit into her sandwich as a happy alternative. I mentally kicked myself for turning down a blow job and wondered if I would get kicked out of the "guy" club for that one. I smirked down at her as I decided I would take her up on the offer later.

"I know what you're up to, Cullen," she said, pinching my inner thigh with her free hand and giggling.

I nodded unapologetically and with dark eyes.

When we were finished I cleaned up the dishes as Bella sat in my place on the counter. Then I grabbed a box of crackers and her arm, slung her over my back and pushed through the door to the living room. She laughed and held on tight, nipping at my ear. I tried to release her once we got to the seating area, but she clamped her legs around me and refused to let go. I tickled her sides and she squirmed out of my way but never slid off my back.

"Fine, have it your way," I scoffed and slumped myself heavily into the overstuffed chair and a half with her behind me.

She squeaked and shoved at my back with her arms but I refused to move, chuckling at her ultra girly cries for help. Finally, she gave up and wrapped her legs around my waist and relaxed into the chair with me in front of her.

"You put up a pretty weak fight there, Swan. I'd expect more from the Chief's daughter," I joked and opened the box of Triscuits, offering some to her over my shoulder.

One hand dug into the box while her other pinched my side, just below my ribs, until I had to elbow her back.

"On the contrary, I have you right where I want you," she purred from behind me, making me turn around to smile at her.

I relaxed into her, my head lying against the dip between her shoulder and her collarbone. I fed her the occasional cracker while she combed through my hair. Her legs were bent on either side of me and I had one arm looped underneath her knee, cupping her leg. We both had our eyes closed.

We talked casually for about twenty minutes until mom and dad came through the doorway from the kitchen. I was laughing about something Bella had said as she reclined comfortably beneath me, humming at my amusement. Both my parents' eyes settled on us for a solid thirty seconds in silence before they shook their thoughts free and continued into the living room. I met Bella's gaze out of the corner of my eye and smiled, but didn't sit up.

"How was the movie?" I asked innocently. Bella's fingers continued in my hair.

"Very good thank you," my father replied with a quick glance in my mother's direction and then back to me. "What are you two up to?"

"We're going on a road trip to nowhere," Bella answered without missing a beat. I chuckled at her.

I explained to them that I just wanted to get away for a few days and told them of the map game where Bella unknowingly selected our destination. Neither of them questioned us much further. Mom told us about some funny parts from the movie and suggested that we go see it, before she excused herself to go upstairs and change into her gardening clothes.

"So, a trip to nowhere?" Dad broached the subject again, perched on the armrest of the couch across from us. Both me and Bella nodded enthusiastically.

"I think that's an excellent idea, kids." His smile was warm and genuine. "I think this one needs it," he directed at Bella while nodding toward me.

My family knew me too well. My mind had been bogging me down even more so than usual, and they could see it. They always tried to help me combat my dramatic side. I knew Mom and Dad would wholeheartedly support the decision to take off for a few days with Bella to try and unwind. Though, I was momentarily embarrassed for brooding like a petulant teenager about some errant thought that I wasn't even sure I could place.

I didn't have a chance to feel that way for long. Bella leaned in closer to me but continued looking at my father.

"I agree, he does need this," she replied, stroking my hair and placing her lips gently to the side of my neck. Her kiss was chaste but lingered long enough that the intimacy could not be denied.

My mother was halfway down the staircase when I looked up, Bella's lips just pulling away from me.

"So…I was thinking we could just go out for dinner if that's okay with everyone. Alice and Jasper will be here tomorrow, and Emmett and Rose will be coming home to spend the weekend with them. We'll be having a big family dinner," Mom said as she sat down on the couch next to Dad. "It's too bad you guys will miss out on that, but I guess you'll see everyone on the camping trip. Why don't we just go grab something simple so that I can come home and start getting things organised for tomorrow? "

We all nodded obediently, knowing we weren't really being asked.

We had a lovely dinner just the four of us and then stopped at the Thriftway on the way home to get enough groceries to sustain several extra people over the week including Emmett. Once we got home, Bella put away the groceries while started the laundry.

I was upstairs with dad talking about the trip. He had a fire blazing in the warm room even though it was summer. The heat pump in the basement was funnelling cool air through the house and the windows near the fire were open. It was an environmental nightmare, but my dad always lit the fire when he spent any length of time in his study. He said there was something about the dancing flames that mesmerised the soul and the crackling noises that soothed one's bones. I had to agree, the fire was comforting as we sipped our drinks and lounged on the sofas. We were each stretched out with our hands under our heads staring at the lazily at the ceiling.

"Shouldn't we go downstairs and help mom and Bella?" I asked, feeling more than a little guilty for just lounging around sipping an old, sweet port while they were downstairs bustling around.

Dad's head rolled over to look at me and he smiled. His eyes shined in a way that caught my attention. "No, son, they both enjoy their time together like that," he murmured slowly.

I knew what he meant. My mom was possibly the most tender and compassionate soul that had ever walked the Earth. She was designed from head to toe to be a mother. It was in her nature and she was good at it. Her voice was always quiet and peaceful and her eyes soft and nurturing. My parents had wanted more children after Alice was born, but my mother had complications during that pregnancy. Nothing major, but they both decided it was better to enjoy the three blessings they had been given rather than pushing their luck with my mother's health.

I also knew that Bella craved her motherly interaction on a subconscious level. It came easily with my mother and she loved being near her, especially in the kitchen as they worked side-by-side and chatted.

"So," Dad began. "You're heading out first thing in the morning?"

"Well, I wanna wait for Allie to get home, so I can at least say 'hi'."

Dad scoffed. "She's not going to be very impressed with you for taking off as soon as she gets back."

"I know." I kneaded the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. "I just…"

"I know, Edward. She'll understand," he interrupted me before I could allow too much guilt in.

Alice had been travelling all summer working for a company she was hoping to get a job with once she graduated the following year. Jasper and his band mates were following along with her from city to city as she shopped with the fashion buyer and Jasper's band played small gigs. It seemed like a great way for the two of them to spend the summer. I was eternally thankful that their lives, while drastically different, blended together so harmoniously. I knew it wouldn't be long before Jasper came to have a serious talk with my father and the idea both made my heart swell and clench at the same time.

"I think you should take my car," Dad's languid voice pulled me from my thoughts.

"Huh?" I turned to my side to face him, resting my empty cup on the floor beside the couch.

"The Mercedes SUV, I think you should take that instead of the Volvo."

I grimaced, fond of my Volvo, even if it was getting a little old.

"The Volvo isn't as trustworthy as it once was, Edward. You don't even know where you're headed. I just changed the tires on the Merc and it has an excellent Navigation system. I can pre-program it tonight with your destination if you show me the map, that way it can still remain a mystery even as you drive."

He winked at me, knowing that was going to be the selling point. The idea of the mystery was very appealing to me. I wanted something semi-spontaneous and fun with Bella to help lighten my mind, even though Bella, in her innate ability to ease my soul, had already begun the process earlier in the day.

After agreeing to take the Merc, I drug my sleepy feet to my bedroom to retrieve the map for my father. I moved slowly – heavy with the ease I had found in Bella, the glass of port, and the long day.

I handed over the map and ambled down the front staircase in search of Bella so I could drive her home. As soon as I was in the living room I heard their gentle voices and happy giggles filtering through the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. I approached quietly and leaned against the doorjamb unnoticed. They sat at the breakfast bar sipping tea, a teapot and plate of cookies sitting between them.

A slow, lazy smile spread across my face as I watched them chatter and giggle together. Bella had her head thrown back as she laughed heartily and my mother held her hand atop the bar. They were family and it was a very beautiful thing to watch. Bella fit into every aspect of my life seamlessly. Better than fitting…that would imply that she wasn't a natural part of my existence to begin with. Bella had been woven intricately into everything that was _me _from birth. Everything was empty without her. Conversely, my entire being sang when she was around, complementing every aspect of me brilliantly.

There had never been any doubt that my life was designed to be spent next to her. Not even in the dark years when we didn't communicate. It had always been obvious that I was living a half-life without her. I needed her in ways that no words could ever articulate.

I entered the kitchen quietly, Bella's back to me as she faced my mother. My mom was saying something softly to her and I could tell just by Bella's posture that she was smiling broadly as she listened. My mom's eyes looked up to me just as I reached Bella's barstool. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head, looking down at her to see her smile stretch even wider.

"You almost ready to go?" I asked, my fingers playing at the loose ends of her hair where it spilled down her back.

"Baby, you look awfully tired," Mom observed. "Why don't I take Bella home and you head upstairs to bed, especially if you are going to be driving tomorrow."

As much as I wanted to tuck Bella in bed myself, I had to admit that my mother had a point. I agreed and took Bella's hand as she stood. I walked her to the door leading into the garage.

Mom went into the little room to the side of the breakfast nook to grab her jacket and keys as I pushed the hair gently away from Bella's face and held her in my hands smiling down at her. I brushed my thumb over her lips and kissed her forehead, a thousand silent words travelling between us.

Mom came up behind me and ruffled my hair that was literally standing on end after all it had been through over the course the day. I walked them to the car and waved good-bye, then poked my head into the open driver side door as dad sat in the passenger seat of his Merc plugging in coordinates into the GPS.

"No cheating," he joked as he pushed me back out of the car. I smiled at him and a glimpse of an unnamed emotion flit across his features. His eyes were wistful but before I could ask why he climbed out of the car and shut the door. The loud sound vibrated in the silent garage. He passed me on his way back into the house, slapping me on the shoulder.

"Get to bed, son, you have a little bit of a drive ahead of you."

I eyed him curiously but agreed and followed him in, climbing the back staircase and heading to my old room for the night. I knew we couldn't be headed too far away, I had folded the map so that only the Pacific North West was visible, not wanting to go far since still had the big family trip to go on once we got back. Besides, I didn't need the distance, I just needed the seclusion with Bella.

Bella came over after breakfast the next morning but stayed downstairs to chat with my parents as I finished throwing the few things that I would need into a duffle bag. I was careful not to disturb the neatly folded, softer things that didn't belong to me on the other half of the bag. I zipped it up and made my way down the stairs with a happy smile on my face. I couldn't wait to be alone with Bella the way that my soul craved.

As I climbed down the staircase voices filtered up toward me. I heard my mom comforting Rosalie about the pregnancy, assuring her that she was almost done. Rosalie groaned loudly. I also heard my little sister's voice which made my smile widen. I couldn't wait to see her – I hadn't since she visited me in January in New York.

I bounced excitedly down the final few stairs and jumped off the landing into the living room, my heart swelling at seeing my entire family all in one place. Bella sat on the edge of a sofa armrest, her elbows on her knees and her little hands cupping her cheeks as she chatted with Jasper. Alice kept interrupting them, bouncing in her seat and clapping, interrupting with her adorable commentary.

They all looked up as I landed on the wooden floors loudly after springing off the staircase. My smile had to be ridiculous because they all eyed me curiously. All but Bella, who just held a gentle smile for me and shook her head at my excitement. Her eyes gleamed and I wanted nothing more than to cross the room, lift her off the couch into my arms and kiss the shit out of her. But my brother's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Hey, bro. So…you guys are off for a whole week by yourselves?" He gave me a dramatically arched brow.

"We'll see how it goes." I winked at him and he shook his head.

I made a mental note to have a serious conversation with him when I got home. I was pretty sure he knew about me and Bella, but he deserved to have an elaborated account straight from me. Besides, he was my brother, and he was a great brother, and I wanted to talk to him. I just always wanted to talk in person, which was difficult to do given all the circumstances. My openness with my brother was just one of the many things that had unintentionally slipped by the wayside the longer I stayed away from home.

I ignored Em and his confused look as I ran straight for Allie. She sprang off the couch and into my arms, wrapping her legs around me. I would have fallen backward with the force if Jasper hadn't anticipated his girlfriend's actions so well and pre-emptively grabbed at my tee-shirt to counterweight me. He didn't look or even break in his conversation with Bella.

Allie was inches from my face, talking a thousand miles a minute about her summer and her experiences with the company she worked for. She was throwing around the names of places like Florence, Singapore, and New York and I tried to keep up.

"Seriously though, Edward, how awesome would it be if we moved to New York and lived near you next year?" she squealed shaking my shoulders with her tiny hands.

I narrowed my eyes at her and returned her gently to the couch next to Jasper.

"New York?" I asked, running my fingers through my hair and sitting on the edge of the coffee table in front of her.

"Yeah, this company has offices in all the major fashion metropolises of the world, including New York." She was so cute and excited. So I bit my tongue about the fact that if I had my way I wouldn't be in New York much longer.

We caught up for a little while longer, and then I pat her head and rolled my eyes at Jasper in a sign of solidarity over handling her perpetual exuberance. He winked and draped his arm around her smirking into the back of her head as he placed a soft kiss.

"Okay, so…one more time just to make sure I've got this right…" Emmett began, and I knew immediately where he was headed. "You're just gonna drive and you have no fucking clue where the hell you're going?"

He walked toward me with his arm looped through my grinning girlfriends' to where I stood in the foyer gathering our bags onto my shoulder.

"Yup," I said, shooting Bella a pointed look that made her bite her lip and blush. She looked down at her feet quickly. She was so predictable and easy to fluster.

"Bro," Em leaned into me and stage-whispered dramatically so that everyone still heard him. "Wouldn't you rather go away with someone that, you know, you have a shot at getting laid with?" He elbowed me roughly in the ribs and gave me wide, persuasive eyes.

I gaped at him for what felt like an eternity.

He must have misinterpreted my silence to imply that he was being rude or something, because he hurriedly qualified. "I mean, no offence B, I just...ya know, thought..." He killed his own sentence as his wife came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder, giving him a look that meant he needed to stop talking immediately.

Beside me, Bella pulled her bag from my shoulder and placed it on her own, stubbornly, and hugged Em who was still yammering about how he didn't mean to offend her. She patted his head and told him to shut up.

I shoved him and hugged Rose, noticing four pairs of eyes twinkling as they snickered over her shoulder at us.

"Is he serious with this shit?" I asked as I pulled back, not even trying to whisper.

"Well, it _is_ Emmett...so yes, unfortunately, he probably is," Rose joked.

Okay...so maybe a _much_ more in depth conversation was due.

Rose shook her head and pushed the heel of her palm into the side of her swollen belly, grimacing and smiling at me at the same time. I hugged her and laid my hand over hers on her tummy.

"Please don't go into labour early while I'm gone, I'll be highly put out."

"No promises," she grumbled and everyone laughed. "I'm seriously considering some Caster Oil." She hugged her swollen belly and hunched forward.

"Don't you dare," my father scolded all joking aside as his doctor mentality kicked in.

"Well, call us if she does," I called over my shoulder as we made out way outside.

My mom handed Bella a paper sack full of snacks and sandwiches for the drive to..._somewhere_. She kissed each of our cheeks and they all waved from the porch as if we were headed off to war and not just down the highway for a few days. My family was close like that.

Just before I climbed into the SUV, Mom and Dad exchanged a sharp look from their place on the top step of the front porch. Dad nodded almost indiscernibly at her and came bounding down the steps.

"Edward, hang on a second," he called.

He approached my door as Bella looked over from the passenger seat. Handing me a manila envelope he refused to completely let go at first. Instead, he laid his hand over mine as I reached for it.

"Don't open it on the first day, please. And I hope you don't mind, but the fingerprint on the map was only 15 or so miles from here so I couldn't resist." His voice was smooth but held a trace of something that I thought sounded almost sombre. I was reminded of his look the night before as he set the GPS. "You guys will have an excellent time, I promise."

Dad bent down with one hand still on the envelope and the other on the roof of the vehicle. He leaned across me and kissed Bella's cheek gently, commanding her to relax and enjoy herself. He tried very unsuccessfully to hide his smirk from me as he stood and relinquished the envelope. He slapped me on the back and I finished climbing into the car.

"Any idea what that was about?" Bella asked once we were pulling out of the driveway as she fingered the manila.

I glanced over at her and slid my hand off the gear shift and to her thigh. I shook my head.

"Do you want me to stop at the station so you can say goodbye to Charlie?"

"Oh, it's okay, I'm sure he's busy." I gave her a dubious look. How busy can _Forks_ keep him, really? She giggled. "Besides, I said goodbye last night and he acted kinda weird. He either knows where we are going or he just doesn't like the idea of me going away alone with you."

I chuckled, both points were highly plausible. The poor guy.

"I wonder where we _are _going," I mused, the backs of my fingers sliding back and forth along the top of her thigh as I drove, following the Navigation's instructions east onto the one-oh-one.

"Well, I'd say 'who one knows?', but I think a few people might."

* * *

Hmmm... *opens Google Maps*

You still hanging in there?

Hugs!

Air

xox


	29. Open Your Eyes

Don't hate me for the every other week posting schedule...I have my reasons.

*sweet smile*

Thank you. To...idk...f*#king everyone! I honestly feel like I want to hug and sloppily kiss every single reviewer.

What?

Without further ado...the trip, part I.

~xox~

* * *

Three hours and forty minutes, one hundred and forty-nine miles, and according to the small blue box in the lower left-hand corner of the Navigation screen, our route included a ferry.

"A ferry?" Bella wondered out loud, noticing the alert message at the same time that I did. "Where in the heck are we going?"

Her voice was light and happy. I could hear the excitement in it. Her cheeks were already flushed with anticipation and she beamed a bright smile in my direction.

_This is why I am doing this. That is my Heaven._

I smiled back at her, allowing my thoughts to float away as I took in the radiant sight of her seated next to me. All the windows in the SUV were down and the sunroof was open. The sun sparkled off the rarely noticeable auburn highlights in Bella's hair. We were halfway to Port Angeles before she began to fiddle with the radio. She switched off my father's pre-programmed jazz station and replaced it with her iPod until some obnoxious girly-rock came pouring out of the speakers.

I mock-glared at her sideways until she smacked my shoulder in dismissal and laughed.

"Seriously?" I grumbled, only half serious. She was too beautiful to be denied anything.

"Seriously," she answered with a firm nod.

I smiled while a girl's voice I didn't recognise shouted out lyrics that were kind of cute. Bella bouncing in the seat beside me shouting them out was priceless, so I kept my mouth shut, except for the happy smile while I kept driving.

An hour later we veered off the one-oh-one just passed Sequim. When the Navigation told us to take the exit toward Bainbridge Island we exchanged a quizzical look. The island was tiny and less than fifteen miles from the exit, but according to the Navigation, we still had another hour and thirty seven minutes to go.

"Have you ever been here before?" Bella asked as we made our way across the short bridge from the mainland.

"Nope."

"Me either, but I heard it's beautiful. We should stop for lunch or something," she suggested as she peered out of her window and out into the water.

I could tell she was distracting herself, the short distance on the bridge making her a little nervous. She had never been a big fan of bridges or heights. However, she always loved the sun and sandy beaches. So, with a final cursory glance at the GPS I decided she was right – lunch on the island would be nice.

I knew the direction we were heading in, and given the destination time on the screen, I couldn't help but wonder if we were headed somewhere inside the city of Seattle, which was just on the other side of the Sound. I frowned internally, not wanting to let on my disappointment to Bella, but I had been hoping for a quainter getaway. I guess that was what happened when you left everything up to chance…and a small inky fingerprint. Besides, wherever we were headed, my father had promised that we would enjoy ourselves, so…I tried not to dwell too much on it.

"Lunch here would be great. I wonder where we should stop." I mused as we pulled off the bridge.

We drove around the entire little island twice, remarking to one another how beautiful and welcoming the small town appeared. The buildings were old wooden structures with elaborately ornate storefronts. The homes had an old fashioned feel to them with large yards, cherry trees, and most with wrap-around front porches. We passed an actual postman in a uniform with a large carrier on his hip, which was rather charming compared to the beat-up, red VW bug and the half-crazy man delivers the mail in Forks. The island was riddled with delightful little parks with cobblestone walkways, playgrounds, and wrought-iron benches. We were just approaching the southern tip when Bella suggested that we stop.

"Why don't we just go there," she asked, pointing out the window to a playground full of children running and screaming excitedly as the rare Washington sunshine beat down on them. "We can eat whatever your mom packed us."

I parked on the side of the street in the crunching gravel shoulder beside a chain link fence that closed in the play yard. Bella reached behind her to grab the sandwiches while I climbed out of the car and stretched. Even though it had only been two hours, my limbs were tight and my neck cracked as I rolled it from side to side, no doubt from all the tossing and turning I had been doing at night. I yawned and blinked into the sunshine, which felt wonderful on my face.

I pulled my arms from my jacket and opened the back door of the SUV to toss it in when I realised Bella had yet to get out of the car. I lay my jacket on the seat and bent down to look at her. She was still twisted around from her place in the front seat, with one hand on the brown paper sack and the other tracing the perimeter of the manila my father had given us at the last minute. She had a sober look on her face that caught my attention immediately.

I knelt down onto the seat and took her hand in mine, disrupting whatever silent musings she was lost in. She looked up and met my gaze and offered me a small smile.

"What is, baby?" I asked softly, brushing the backs of my fingers along her cheek. I pulled up on her chin until I could see all of her features better assess what had caused her to turn so sombre so quickly.

"What do you think is in here?" Her voice was small. Bella had never been one for being the centre of attention. She had never been a loud or rambunctious child. She was always soft-spoken and introvert – something that followed her into adulthood. She rarely raised her voice and preferred the gentle quiet of remaining inside her own head where she could be alone with her thoughts. It was one of the reasons we understood each other so well, we were very similar in that sense.

Nevertheless, I knew better than to think that the quiet, almost non-existent voice I just heard had anything to do with any of that. This voice was small and worried. It was her scared voice. She was uneasy about something.

I placed the hand that was not cradling her face, against the headrest beside her so I could lean forward closer. With the softest, most sincere touch I could generate, I lay my lips against hers – taking my time and drawing in a small breath from her mouth and releasing it slowly before I gave way to the kiss. Her lips moved with mine, allowing me to dictate the kiss entirely. I washed my lips over hers with slow, precise movements, pausing before each meeting to align myself perfectly, languidly, lovingly. My kiss told her that I loved her, I was there for her, and that I would protect her. Even from an envelope.

I pulled back after a few minutes as the soft wet sound filled the car as our lips detached from one another. I rest my forehead against hers and forgot all about my aching limbs or the haunting dreams that I couldn't quite place. All I saw were shiny brown eyes and the telltale knit of her brow that meant she was fighting back some kind of emotion.

"Please don't do that," I whispered, my lips brushing hers as I spoke. I lifted my hand from her cheek and swept the pad of my thumb between her brows to un-furrow them. "What's going? What did I miss?"

I refused to break eye-contact with her, her eyes always telling me so much more than her words, but I could tell from the slight pinch in her creases that she was biting her lip. I used the heel of my hand to pull down on her chin until she released it. As long as she was biting it, she wasn't going to be able to answer me.

"I don't know," she finally whispered, and I could tell it wasn't just a brush-off, she genuinely wasn't sure. I knew the feeling well. "It was just something in the way my dad was acting last night when I said goodnight and good-bye to him, knowing he would be at work way before I got up. He was…_emotional_."

Charlie was a relatively simple guy. He didn't have much difficulty displaying annoyance or anything like that, but when it came to the softer emotions of the heart…he struggled. He didn't usually bother short of telling Bella that he loved her or was proud of her.

"He was like...I don't know. I swear, Edward, that he was about to cry, but he didn't say anything except to bring my camera and to relax and have a good time."

She was coming back around now, her words coming faster and less shaky than before –the intrigue of the envelope carried more weight than the emotion.

I rocked back onto my heels and picked it up. It was relatively flat, whatever was in it was just paper. I slid my fingers over ever inch of it looking for anything else, wondering to myself if somehow my parents were further ahead of me than I knew. However, there was nothing but flatness.

"Do you want to open it now?" I asked, unable to stop myself from the curiosity of wondering what the hell was in the damn thing.

"No," she scolded, pulling it from my fingers and tucking it into the pouch behind the driver seat. "Your dad said that we should wait until at least the second day to open it."

I kissed her forehead and searched her eyes for a moment longer to make sure she was genuinely ok. I could tell that whatever lingering effects her father's emotions had on her had passed for the time being. So I released her and backed out of the car. I walked around to her door and opened it for her just as she was unfastening her seatbelt. I offered her my hand with a satisfied smirk on my face.

"You _really_ like opening car doors for me, don't you?" she joked playfully, the smile and light returning to her face as we left behind whatever was in that envelope. We made our way to the gate in the fence and over the field to the edge of the park.

"Yes, I do. And yet, more often than not, you stubbornly deny me the pleasure," I chided.

"Honestly, Edward, it's just a car door. I'm a modern woman and I am more than capable," she muttered under her breath, shaking her head but still smiling.

"Yeah? Well spiders are just insects, but you still force me to kill those any time they creep into your bedroom," I countered, recalling a specific evening when we were fifteen. I was just getting into bed when Bella came over and demanded that I return to her house with her to kill a spider, that it turned out had crawled away in her absence. I had to spend hours tearing apart her room to find it, demolish the offending arachnid, put her bedroom back together, and then come downstairs and pronounce her room safe again, before she allowed me to return home to bed. It was shortly thereafter that I took up the habit of sleeping on the couch whenever Charlie worked the overnight shifts. "Perhaps some ancient acts of chivalry are okay to maintain, Bella." I raised my brows knowingly and swatted playfully at her ass.

I looped my arm through hers and gallantly escorted her to a park bench underneath the swooping canopy of a cluster of trees facing The Sound. I turned my nose up and pursed my lips in an obvious attempt to appear old-fashioned and courtly. I gestured to the bench with a grand arm movement, requesting her company. Bella giggled and poked me in the side until I stopped.

She opted out of the bench anyway, and instead crossed the bike path and settled herself cross-legged on the lush grass on the edge of the bluff. Across the water was the Seattle skyline. The sun shone so vibrantly off the water that it was almost blinding, as sailboats idled by and seagulls squawked overhead.

I took my place beside her and she quickly stretched out to lay her head against my knee, curling on her side to look out over the water. I took the time to appreciate how beautiful the day was and to comb my fingers through her hair for a few precious moments before the wind would tangle it and I wouldn't be able to. I remembered the time when she cut it just after high school. I was glad it was long again

I reached into the bag and pulled out two wrapped sandwiches and a few Ziploc baggies of crackers and yogurt covered pretzels. After opening the first sandwich I passed it down to Bella.

"Peanut butter and pickles…I take it this one is yours," I said with a grimace. She inherited that particular taste from her mother. It never failed to gross me out.

She grabbed it with a smirk and sat up, nestling herself between my legs and leaning back against my chest. There was no way I was going to be able to eat my sandwich with her pressed against me like that, so I rest my chin atop her head and wrapped my arms around her waist. I buried my nose into her hair and breathed deep, closing my eyes at the very familiar, very _Bella _scent that was perhaps my favourite scent on Earth.

"I like it on this island. You're just one little bridge or ferry ride away from Seattle, but you get all this small town goodness. And the city looks so small from here, doesn't it?" Bella spoke with a smooth, contented purr as my fingers made slow trails back and forth against the underside of each arm.

"Hmm?" I wasn't paying attention. I wasn't do anything, just relaxing and breathing.

"The city, you goof," she continued, elbowing jokingly in the stomach. "It's so small, isn't it?"

I looked out across the water to the Seattle skyline, which really was nothing more than a tight little cluster of buildings. "Yeah, but I always think the same thing whenever I'm on the other side of the river from New York. It seems so contained when you look at it from far away, but then when you're in the centre of it's nothing but chaos and noise and tall buildings that go on for days."

"But you love it there, right?"

I knew her too well, enough to know immediately where the forcibly casual-sounding question was headed.

"Yeah I love it there. I never want to leave," I said trying to sound serious just to watch her reaction. I was selfish like that sometimes. Her reaction was caused by her love. Sometimes it was nice to see it unbridled for just a moment. It worked.

Bella shot up off my lap and looked to me panic-stricken. "You what? But I thought… You said…"

I put her out of her misery with my finger to her lips, smiling slyly at her until she rolled her eyes dramatically in understanding.

"You're a jerk," she grumbled and smacked me at the back of my head.

I did my best to dodge her by ducking, even though she still made contact. I wrapped my arms around her and placed a little kiss on the tip of her nose. Then, I unwrapped my sandwich and we finished our lunch in silence, with nothing but small, loaded looks and smiles exchanged between us while we ate.

Long after we finished eating, after we sat in the comfortable silence just enjoying the beautiful view of the water, I eventually scooted Bella off my lap so I could stand and stretch. I shook my legs out and reached my hands high above my head. Bella kneeled behind me, slowly rising to her feet. Before she did, I felt a gentle kiss at the small of my back just above my belt where the skin peeked out. Her fingers curled inside the waist of my shorts and she used me to help pull herself up. She tucked herself under my arm as I lowered it and kissed the top of her head. She was quite possibly the sweetest thing ever made.

I broke away from her begrudgingly to throw our garbage in the bin on the other side of the sidewalk. When I turned around to walk back to her, collect our things, and head back to the car, she was blowing wishweeds into the air with big puffed out cheeks. The sun reflected off the water and caught on her sunglasses and she smiled at me, giggling.

_Definitely the sweetest thing…_

"What'd you wish for?" I asked as I took her hand in mine and we crossed the playground.

"If I tell you it won't come true."

"Hmmm…" I pondered that for a while as I opened the car door for her.

"Tell you what, if it comes true later I'll let you know," she said with a sexy wink as I climbed into my seat.

"Deal."

I pulled back onto the little road leading to the southeast corner of the tiny island. We pulled into the line-up that consisted of two cars before us to take the short ferry across the sound and into Seattle. I put the car in park as we waited.

Bella slipped her sandals off and tucked her feet underneath her and turned toward me. Something caught my eye and so I reached out and pinched one of her toes in between my finger and thumb and regarded her with a quirked eyebrow.

"Hot pink?"

"Alice."

"Ahh."

We laughed and shook our heads. My sister wasn't in the house for more than an hour before we left and yet she somehow managed to force a pedicure onto Bella. Some things never changed.

"Hey, remember that time…"

I silenced her with a sharp glare. She mashed her lips together but it did little to stifle her giggles. I knew immediately where she was going with that story. Her little laugh turned into a full belly chuckle complete with tiny tears in the corners of her eyes while I continued to glower.

There was a time in grade school when our gym class went outside to the nearby sand pit to play a game of beach volleyball to enjoy a rare day of sun in Forks. We all pulled our shoes and socks off and happily ran into the sand. Unfortunately for me, I had forgotten that the night before when I fell asleep on the living room floor, Alice took it upon herself to test nail polish colours on one of my feet. Every toe was a different shade of pink or red. So were my cheeks. Luckily, in a town as miniscule as Forks, all I had to do was mutter my annoying little sister's name and everyone understood. However, that didn't mean a few jackasses didn't call me "Pinky-toe Cullen" for the rest of the afternoon.

I was still plotting my revenge on Alice for that one. She was a hard person to play a prank on. She always caught on before I could follow through. But one day…

The ferry docked and the passengers disembarked. The cars ahead of me turned their engines back on and soon we filed onto the small, open-air ferry.

We exited eighteen minutes later and I followed the traffic through the twisting and ill-designed core of Seattle until I was directed onto the I-Five Northbound. As I turned onto the ramp we both eyed each other curiously. Not only were we exiting the city, but we were essentially backtracking.

We weren't on the highway longer than forty seconds before our exit came up on the screen. As soon as we saw it we both let out an understanding, "ahh".

Lake Washington.

The lake as the second largest in the State and was known for its serenity amidst the city. It nestled against the eastern coast of the Seattle and was dotted with several well-known resorts. Neither of us had ever been to any of them. We drove across the five-twenty bridge and Bella clenched her jaw and furrowed her brows as we crawled in rush hour traffic over what was literally the world's longest floating bridge.

I looked over and smiled at her as she chewed on her lip nervously. The bridge was known for its instability and was overdue to either be demolished and reconstructed, or to collapse into the water. The local news was always mentioning that it was shut down in stormy weather, or that cables, supporting beams under the water, or sections of the road itself were being replaced until a new bridge could be built. As we crept toward the eastern shore of the lake, Bella bounced her knees that were still bent under on her seat and stared out the window anxiously.

"It's okay, baby," I offered though wasn't sure how soothing my voice was given that I was stifling laughter at her dramatic display. "Do you know how many cars travel this bridge a day? It will be fine." I slide one hand to her knee both to quiet it and to give her a reassuring squeeze.

"What the hell are you doing? Both hands on the wheel, Cullen," she scolded and my laughter finally broke free.

"Honestly, Bella, you are the most paranoid back-seat driver ever. It's kind of annoying."

"I'm in the front seat," she muttered, legs still bouncing, as she brought her fingers to her mouth to chew on them.

I quickly bat her hand from her lips given that she had only recently stopped biting her nails. That was a mistake. Her eyes tried to kill me as she glared across the console.

"Hands on the wheel."

I mashed my lips together in an effort to stop chuckling at her, figuring that if nothing else, I was hindering my chances for getting laid later. Once we pulled off the bridge I chanced a peek at her. She was looking over at me smirking with pink cheeks. I pretended to glower at her and she raised one brow at me. I thought of holding my palms up in a sign of surrender but thought for sure she would yell at me again for taking my hands off the wheel. So I just smiled back innocently.

"Yeah, _I'm _the annoying one," she joked, leaning toward me to lay her head on my shoulder. I didn't dare put my arm around her. Bella could be feisty when she wanted to be. Unfortunately for her, it usually just amused me.

The GPS led us down the embarcadero and into the grand wrap-around courtyard of The Woodmark.

"No way," Bella whispered, placing her feet on the ground and sitting up straight to look appreciatively out the window.

I was awestruck as well. The Woodmark was beyond five stars. It was built almost thirty years ago as a yachting and spa resort at Carillon Point, the most revered marina in the Pacific Northwest.

I parked in front of the main lobby and a bellhop immediately opened Bella's door and helped her out of the SUV. I was too busy looking around at the beautiful resort to glare at him. I took Bella's hand we walked slowly up to the front desk and waited quietly in the lush gold room for the couple ahead of us to finish checking in.

"Edward," Bella whispered.

When I looked to her she had wide, excited eyes and grin on her face. I kissed her and pulled back just in time to see the people in front on us clearing away and the man behind the desk awaiting our approach.

"Uh…reservations, I guess?" I told the man, not meaning to sound like an imbecile, but I really had no idea what we were doing there. "Under Cullen." It sounded like a question.

The man's eyes narrowed but he checked the computer registry and then looked up, smiling widely. A little _too _widely and I was instantly weary of what my father had done.

"Of course, sir. You are booked into the Lakeside Suite, which is of course aptly named as it overlooks the marina on the lake…"

His voice droned on as he proudly announced all the suites amenities, which apparently included two luxurious bedrooms, a parlour, a three-hundred square foot deck, and a personal room service steward that was just a push button away from us twenty-four hours a day. The man slid over a package of papers and brochures on the resort, as well as the key cards to the room, and told us that the bellhop would show us to the suite once he gathered our things.

We loaded up the luggage dolly and the SUV was taken by a kid in a valet vest. Once we were alone in the room, Bella made her way to the balcony. Leaning against the railing she breathed in the sweet air and her entire body relaxed. I wrapped my arms around her and peered over her shoulder at the lazy parade of yachts moving down below. We could see a glimpse of the mountains, the entire lake, and the opposite side of the Seattle skyline as we had seen over our picnic lunch.

"This is perfect," she whispered softly, afraid to disrupt the peaceful air blowing all around us.

I couldn't have agreed more. I was so relieved to be in a calm, quiet place where I could breathe in the crisp, sunny air, feel Bella in my arms, and slowly unwind my thoughts. I kissed the side of her neck and hugged her tighter. Seagulls squawked overhead and waves lapped at the long pier that extended out into the lake. In the distance you could hear the low voices of yachters as they barked out orders to set sail. There was something about the way we couldn't quite make out the words but still felt their presence that was very soothing. My father was a genius.

I gathered Bella's hair and draped it over her shoulder so I could kiss her neck more thoughtfully. She hummed under my lips' touch and I knew her eyes would be closed while a she smiled contentedly. I dropped my hand from her shoulder to her hip and slid it along the waistband of her jeans, intentionally lifting the fabric of her tee-shirt so my fingers met the silky skin beneath. Her back melted into my chest and I sucked lightly at the dip where her shoulder met her neck.

With the faintest pressure I tugged at her hip to ask her to spin around and face me. She read my sign perfectly and turned so that her back was pressed against the railing. She draped her arms around my neck and I smiled down at her.

"Mmm…I needed this," I whispered, lowering my head to her shoulder again, but just laying it against her, breathing her in as her fingertips played with the hair at the nape of my neck.

"I know you did," she whispered back, pulling away to kiss my temple, then settling against the top of my head.

My hands stayed positioned at her hips. I continued to knead just below her hipbones while I allowed my mind to slowly begin unbinding itself. Her skin in my hands made the tips of my fingers tingle, while her hands in my hair felt cathartic.

A polite knock at the front door interrupted the process of fully letting my mind drift to a peaceful place. I crossed the masterfully decorated cream and brown parlour and opened the door to a very energetic steward who introduced himself and handed me an itinerary, emphasizing that everything was flexible but that arrangements for our stay had already been reserved. Once he aptly refused a tip, I closed the door after thanking him again and joined Bella. She was splayed out on her belly across the huge bed with her feet kicking in the air.

"Hmm…our stay has been planned for us? That sounds interesting and perhaps slightly disturbing, considering some of the activities _I _plan to partake in," she giggled, sliding the printouts from my hand.

We silently read through the itinerary together, not much of it making sense as we read things such as, "Bin at 8PM", "NWFS 12PM – 12AM", or "Woodmark II 4PM".

We spent the next 2 hours rummaging through the accompanying pamphlets to translate our itinerary into something we could understand. We discovered that Bin was the name of the elegant dining lounge, NWFS was the spa, which made Bella poke me in the ribs and giggle about us both getting pink pedicures, and the Woodmark II was the resort's master yacht that was for hire.

"Oooh, what time is it?" Bella asked, sitting up and holding one of the many sheets of paper in her fingers, suppressing a big smile.

I eyed her carefully and checked my cell. "Five forty-seven."

"Oh, well according to this we only have forty-three minutes until dinner," she giggled and waggled the paper in the air between us.

I snatched at and saw that she was right, but all the sheet said was "dinner", which seemed more like a rather vague suggestion. I was done poring over papers – I had other ideas. I stacked the sheets neatly and laid them on the reading table in the bedroom across from the bed. By the time I turned around Bella was on her back with her knees bent, twirling a long piece of hair between her fingertips with mischievous eyes.

"What? Do you have an alternative schedule, Mr. Cullen?" she joked, sitting up and grinning at me.

I briefly contemplated closing the glass doors to the balcony which we had left open earlier, but then decided I didn't really care enough to. How noisy could we really be? Besides, the fresh air and the way the thin, creamy curtains billowed in the wind was calming. So I crawled up the bed to join her.

"You've never been one for following someone else's schedule," Bella breathed as I dragged my nose from her belly, over her breast, along her neck, and to her ear.

"Nope," I purred into her ear, pinning her with my arms at either side of her body. "Besides, they said _everything _was flexible."

I dragged my fingertips across the skin below the hem of her shirt in a firm, purposeful trail as my breath filled her ear and my hips rest heavily against hers.

"Yes," she breathed back. "They did."

I licked softly at the place just behind her ear and she whimpered and wriggled beneath me, much to my delight. The quiet ease of just being with Bella washed over me and I felt a sense of relief to finally be alone.

Little familiar fingers twisted deeply into my hair and I groaned against her mouth.

"Mmm...I like kissing you," Bella murmured between the movements of our lips. Despite the rapidly escalating heat of the situation, I chuckled with my mouth still against hers.

"I should hope so."

"No. I mean… I like kissing you like _this_," she whispered. Her lips continued over mine. I ran my tongue along her lower lip and drew it into my mouth with a gentle suckle. "The way we kissed in the back of the carriage in Central Park." More kissing. "And the way we kissed the first day you were in Tempe and we made love." I washed slow movements over her lips as she spoke, her words wrapping around the chords that had me bound, pulling until they loosened. "Just like this."

I knew precisely what she meant. Unhurried. No risk of interruption. Tender and familiar. The kind of touch that swirled itself from the surface of my skin into the centre of my heart and bled outward, touching and warming every inch of me.

With my arms around her waist, I rolled us so I was on my back and she could lay her chest against mine, never relenting my lips' connection with hers. One hand moved to her hair, fingers twisting lightly as the hair tickled my wrist, while the other splayed out against the small of her back where her tee-shirt had ridden halfway up.

Quiet sounds of contentment mixed with the wet sounds of our kissing as Bella's entire body moulded to mine. Her leg slowly crept over my hip as she lay out flat against me. Her toes touched mine.

"Like New Years on the beach," I whispered, my hand sliding over her hip and squeezing the soft, perfect flesh of her ass cheek.

"Our first night together," she offered in a breath.

I pulled out of the kiss just far enough to meet her eyes.

"No, not that night. Because I'm not scared shitless right now," I joked and leaned back in to continue the kiss, but just as my eager lips met hers she retracted.

"Wait, you were scared that night?"

I scoffed. Shouldn't that be a given?

"Of course I was scared, Bella. I had no clue what I was doing. I mean...not the sex…well, okay yeah, obviously that too. But I mean..._this_." I dipped in and she let me claim her mouth that time. "I had no way of knowing if it was going to be the best thing that ever happened to me or the biggest mistake of my life. What if I messed up everything and lost you in the process." I deepened my kiss and pulled up on her ass with my hand until she was nestled right where I wanted her. The memory of just how close I had come to losing her once resonated far too close for comfort. I kissed her with a force that screamed of not only passion but of fear – a dichotomous combination that only someone in love could appreciate.

"You can't lose me, Edward, not ever. Its impossible," she whispered against my lips.

"Isabella. Please mean that. You have to," I practically whined as she continued kissing me.

"Of course I mean it. How would you lose me? I would never let that happen. I love you too much. I _need _you too much."

Another knock at the door.

Begrudgingly, Bella pulled her lips from mine and sat upright, peeking over her shoulder in the general direction of the front door. I felt my fingers grip into her hips as if I could will the person at the door to go away with my sheer force of will. Bella looked back to me and rolled her eyes, straddling me with a grin that looked both amused and defeated.

"Wow. That is just incredibly ironic," she mumbled, just as upset as I was about our interrupted-uninterrupted kisses.

I helped her off me, adjusted myself, and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Six thirty-one.

"So much for flexible," I muttered as I opened the door.

I tried to glower at the steward to impress upon him that, while I wasn't the one who initially established the agenda, I would like it if he only answered to me now that we had checked in. We were in search of some privacy and he was a little over-eager. As he spoke, he wheeled in a cart with a creamy gold tablecloth made of silk not cotton, covered in silver mystery platters with their lids still in place. I noticed him glace over my shoulder to where the bed was visible through the open French doors that led to the bedroom.

His voice mumbled on and on about what was under the platters and it seemed like he was apologising for something, or perhaps clarifying something, but I wasn't paying close attention. I had followed his gaze to where Bella sat cross-legged on the corner of the bed. Her hair was dark and wild from rolling around against the blankets with me. Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest and her beautiful, little eyes were glaring an unmistakable message to the poor, eager room steward – the very same message I had tried to express.

There was a reason we got along so well, a reason that I loved her so much.

I couldn't help snickering under my breath as I looked back to the man who was nodding awkwardly and backing out of the room. I forced a tip on him and when I shook his hand his eyes darted back over my shoulder and he nodded in a clear understanding of what I meant. The smirk of his lips was almost enough to make me slam the door before he backed away sufficiently, but I ground my back molars together and gave a curt smile instead.

I shut the door nicely and backtracked into the bedroom. Bella had given up her fight stance and was laid out on her back with both her arms and legs extended straight. Her fists curled and her feet kicked as they hung off the bed and she stretched. Her eyes were closed. A sliver of pale porcelain peeked out from between her dark tee and her dark jeans. I licked my lips and stood by the side of the bed near her head taking her in until she slowly opened her eyes.

She started at seeing me there, staring down at her so intently, but then laughed it off and sat up in front of me. I wrapped my arms around her just to hug her, breathe her in, kiss the top of her head, and then take her to investigate the mystery platters... But when she threw her arms around my neck and held me tight, I decided to scoop her up and throw her over my shoulder to carry her into the dining area.

She squealed, of course, I knew she would. I also anticipated the small beats of her fists against my back and the giggles intermixed with attempts to protest. What I didn't anticipate was how quick her hands could work. One second they were pummelling my back as I stumbled and warned her to behave herself or we would both fall to the floor, and the next she had hugged my back, snaked her hands to my front, and popped open the buttons of my jeans enough so they slid down my thighs.

I stumbled forward with my legs caught and not cooperating while Bella dropped sideways off my shoulder. She was expecting it, so she caught herself better than I could. I fell straight to my knees with a loud thud. Bella rolled around on the floor in peels of uncontrolled laughter while I shook my head and tried to figure out everything that had happened in the last ten seconds.

"Oh, you think that's funny?" I purred in a dangerous voice, crawling forward, stalking her, my legs bound at my knees by the annoying fucking jeans that were always in my way.

Bella righted herself to a sitting position and nodded furiously in between fits of laughter. I cocked my head to the side, assessing the situation, planning my next course of action. In truth, I didn't care what I did next as long as it somehow involved Bella's bare skin against mine, and then I would more than satisfied.

Noticing the darkness in my eyes as I plotted, Bella began slowly creeping backward, scooting on her ass away from me. I knew she was pretending. Her crab-walk backward may have implied "no", but the way her eyes smouldered and the two teeth that pressed fiercely into her bottom lip begged to differ.

"How funny?" I whispered as I crawled closer. She was slowing down so I could catch her. Her feet were in between my hands as I moved.

She didn't answer, just smiled.

I stopped moving to watch her, staring up at her on my hands and knees from under my lashes. Her smiled dropped. Bella pouted, wondering why I had stopped stalking her. Whatever game it was that we were playing, she was hoping that I would win, knowing that if I did, so would she.

I tilted my head to the side thoughtfully as she sulked, placing her hand on the floor behind her and giving one last scoot away from me. She pushed back with her legs until she stopped abruptly. My smile widened.

Bella whipped her head around to see what she had hit and realised that her hand had slid under the front of a small loveseat and her back was pressed against the cushions. She looked back to me, knowing she had trapped her self, and shook her head in gracious defeat.

"Still funny?" I asked, taking the final crawl forward to hover directly over her.

I was settled nicely between her bent legs. Our lips were so close that I could feel her breath against mine after I licked and wet them. She pushed up on her arms so that her mouth could come in contact with mine.

"Immensely," she whispered, her lips moving mine with their force as she spoke, and then she pushed them harder against me for a deep kiss.

Without speaking I broke away from the kiss after my head became cloudy with the need for air. I slithered down her body and begin peeling everything off of her. Jeans, panties…gone. I kissed my way back up her body – kisses on her thighs, her hipbones, her stomach. Her fingers reached for my shirt to pull it from me, but I leaned back on my heels before she could touch it. I stripped myself, much to her amusement, peeling myself out of the binding denim. Bella giggled as I glared at the traitorous jeans then threw them into the bedroom.

As she smirked at me, I lowered back to my knees, planning a way to get even. I would never hurt Bella, I could never even pretend to. But I was all for finding a simple, harmless way to torment her a little.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she anticipated my touch. I kissed the tops of each knee, the silky skin just on the inside of her thighs that seemed to electrify her as soon as my lips made contact. Bella's back arched off the carpet as a low moan escaped her lips. Dragging my tongue along the visible skin below her tee-shirt, I looked up to meet her heavy, hooded eyes that begged to finish what we had now started about seven times since the beginning of the day.

I wrapped my fingers around her hips. They were long and while my thumb pushed at her hipbones that jutted out beneath them, the tips of my fingers nearly met underneath her back as I held her body in a firm, commanding way that only I could. I pushed my hands up her torso, inching her tee-shirt up with them as I eased over her ribs and along the smooth swell of her breasts. Her lids lost the battle with gravity and closed slowly just as my lips met her stomach, tracing kisses below the top I was pushing out of my way.

My lips followed the movement of my hands until her top was as high as I could push it. I gripped it with one hand and cupped her head in the palm of my other. Lifting her head up off the carpet I pulled the tee over her until just her arms had yet to be freed. With her eyes still blissfully closed, enjoying my touch, my nearness, and my manipulations, while demonstrating her unwavering trust in me, Bella began to wriggle her arms free of the short sleeves of her shirt.

"Stop squirming, Isabella," I growled, low and authoritative in her ear. Her eyes opened at my request, looking slightly confused but entirely excited.

With her shirt still bound at her forearms, I gently lay her head back against the floor, and crawled higher up her body until I was straddling her chest. Before she realised what I was doing she leaned forward and licked the head of my cock, sending sharp trills of the familiar, crazed current, that dominated me whenever Bella and I joined, straight through my body. It momentarily clouded my mind and caused my legs to quake against her sides. I scowled down at her pleased little smirk and lifted the corner of the sofa.

In a swift, yet careful move, I lowered it back down to the ground and wiggled down her body, never shifting my eyes from hers as she searched mine for understanding. Understanding which she found as soon as she tried to reach for me, but couldn't because I trapped her with the leg of the couch between her head and her gathered shirt. Her arms were nicely bent and restrained above her head. If she really wanted to, she could wiggle free, but I suspected she wouldn't' try.

Her eyes were on fire, flashing brightly, her broad smile belying the hard edge she was trying to force in her eyes. I nodded appreciatively at the body below me with what had to be a slightly sinister gleam in my eye, then licked my lips and pondered her a moment before speaking.

"Still funny?" I asked again, tapping the tip of her nose twice then trailing the tip of my finger down her nose, over her parted lips where I felt her hot, panting breath tickle my fingers as I passed, over her chin, and all the way down the centre of her chest right to the top of her pelvis. Bella bucked her hips toward my hand but I pulled back just enough so she couldn't make any contact where she wanted it the most. I couldn't help the laugh that escaped me. "Actually, I think you're right. This _is _funny."

Bella huffed and narrowed her eyes at me. "It was funnier when it was _your _limbs that were bound." Something in her eyes made me think she didn't mean her words nearly as much as she pretended to.

"Oh… I beg to differ," I countered, sliding my hands under her back and unhooking her bra. There was no way to free it, but I pushed it up to her elbows where her tee-shirt had her tangled and bound.

I lay against her with one hand on the floor near her breast, supporting most of my weight off of her, but still settling myself firmly along her body. Our breath mingled, her skin lit mine on fire, and I could feel the head of my dick just barely pressing against the opening of her legs. It was all I could do to restrain myself from pushing deep into her in one firm thrust. But I loved her too much to do that…even if I did pseudo-tie her to the couch.

Her eyes closed and her breath came in heavy pants. I couldn't actually hear it because the blood pumping through me was pounding inside the walls of my skull, drowning out anything and everything else around me. However, I could feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest against mine, pushing then pulling me with her as she breathed me in.

Slowly, torturously for both Bella and myself, I brought my lips to hers and pressed them against her soft skin. Her lips parted automatically, but I pecked and nibbled my way away from them, around the corner of her mouth to where my tongue washed neatly over her skin once. I moved my kisses under her jaw and down her chin while her quiet whimpering fought to break through the thumping rush of blood in my head and I cowered above her, wanting nothing more if I lived to be a thousand years old, than the woman in my arms and those noises on her lips.

Bella was everything I needed. Whatever was mulling around in my head was going to be gone by the end of the trip, that much I knew. Bella could fix me, soothe me, satisfy me. She was all I would ever want. As long as I had her, I had everything.

I kissed my way up the column of her neck to her ear, my free hand drawing lazy circles on the side of her hip. I watched her facial expressions carefully as I sucked her earlobe into my mouth and scraped my teeth over it on its release. Her eyelids fluttered and her body shifted against mine, seeking something. A deep rumble poured through her chest and across her lips. Her shoulders rocked from side to side in an obvious objection at being restrained.

"Open your eyes," I asked quietly.

She didn't.

"You're awfully bossy these days," she scolded through a wispy breath, eyes still closed. "Close your eyes, pack your things, get in the car, hands over your head, _open _your eyes…" Her voice was a deep, mocking imitation of mine.

I grunted and continued pouring my soul into the kisses I left around her ear and along her neck, the top of her shoulder and the dip at her collarbone. Though, just for added fun, I pushed my hips forward until I pressed an inch inside of her and then quickly withdrew, causing Bella to cry out from a delicious cocktail of surprise and pleasure. It took every ounce of restraint I had to pull back and not bury myself deeper. But I wasn't done playing.

Foreplay is a very integral part of sex, after all.

Bella opened her eyes. I couldn't help noticing that they were a little off kilter and glazed over. After blinking several times to uncross them she peered sideways at where I hovered directly over her right ear.

"So, what's with the bossiness?" she asked in a course voice. I instantly recognised the gravity underneath the superficial question. Something was upsetting me enough to force me to seek some form of control in her, we both knew that.

I straightened myself over her and nudged the inside of her thigh with my knee, forcing her to open wider. Her eyes were momentarily distracted. She looked down – her spread legs, my obvious readiness, my position at her entrance – and smiled. Her eyes slid slowly back to mine and she waited for some sort of an answer, but I wasn't ready to dig too deep just yet, so I gave her the first thing that came to my mind.

"I don't know… But you always do whatever I ask."

Her shoulders wiggled and she growled at not being able to move them. I knew without a doubt that she longed the feel the course skin of my cheek and jaw where I hadn't shaved in a few days as she swept her fingertips along to my shoulders where they would knit into my hair and she could pull me closer, comfort me and hold me to her. I saw the pleading in her eyes.

We were done having our fun. It was time to get serious.

With one hand secured around her ribcage, holding her carefully, I braced my weight with my knees on the ground and one shoulder pressed against hers. I reached up and shoved the couch roughly until it moved backward pulling the clothing with it to free Bella's arms.

No sooner did I drop to my elbow, eyes locked on hers, then I pushed myself deep inside her, knowing without checking that she would be more than ready for all of me. Her arms wrapped around me, and while their weight was small, their embrace was powerful. I relaxed all of my weight against her and pushed my hands under her head to hold it in my palms. Her legs bent and drove me deeper. They crossed at the ankle and rest against my ass. Since I was lying entirely against her, she controlled the easy, short, sway of our love-making.

We moved slow and steady for what felt like hours. I braced my forehead against hers and we swallowed one another's gentle moans and cries until finally, the liquid heat that swirled inside Bella became too much. Her hips lifted off the floor while her thighs clamped around my hips. I ran one hand down her neck, under her shoulder and settled it beside her breast. My thumb brushed over her nipple and she ground her eyes shut and shuddered beneath me.

"Oh God, Edward."

I was right behind her.

My forehead abandoned hers but met with the floor as I gasped and searched for air with my face buried in the crook of her neck. Both our bodies were covered in a thin sheen of sweat and our holds on one another had yet to relax. In fact, I could distinctly feel each sharp crescent where Bella's fingernails remained digging into the skin at my lower back.

A low and constant whimper had been pouring through her lips since we climaxed and I tried to regain my breath. Her lips were at my ear so I could hear that it hadn't died down. It wasn't an urgent noise, or a sob, nor was it a contented sound. I lifted my head to see what was wrong.

One look in her eyes and I knew that I was going to have to search myself to find the source of whatever was bothering me, because it was now bothering Bella as well. She deserved answers. Her eyes begged to be told. But I had no idea what to tell her that she didn't already know.

_I love you._

_You are everything to me._

_Every moment I spend with you is perfection._

_Every moment I spend away from you is a new kind of misery._

_Every moment that I breathe I am terrified of somehow losing the one true thing that anchors me to this world, that makes me feel alive and worthwhile, that makes me feel like I am a part of something bigger and more meaningful than just my own meagre existence. The love, the power, the desire, the sense of completion…? _

_Bella._

Everything that I am was tied to that woman – that beautiful understanding, patient woman who searched my eyes for an answer that I felt like I _almost _had but wasn't quite sure.

In that moment where our eyes stayed locked on one another's and our bodies lay still, a hundred thousand ideas flashed through my mind. I wanted to crack open my heart and spill it out before her…but there wasn't a damn thing in there that she didn't already own. Whatever was bothering me wasn't inside my heart, it was inside my head.

I wanted to grab her face in my hands and squeeze, drilling my desperate, needy eyes into hers and beg her to give up everything and come to New York with me in the fall. But I could never, would never, ask that of her…because she would do it. I wanted to push myself up to my knees and ramble endlessly about how much I love her and need her only to end in a proposition of the most heartfelt kind. But I literally wasn't prepared for that. And I was smart enough to know that none of those things were going to solve any of our problems. Only time could bring us all of the things that we wanted.

So I held her face in my hands, but did so gently. I lifted myself to my knees, bringing her with me, and wrapped my arms around her and held. I held tight. And firm. And solid. It was a promise.

_I will tell you as soon as I know._

"I love you." The words broke as I whispered them into the intoxicating sweetness of her hair. "I love you." There was nothing more to say yet.

"I know you do," Bella whispered back, her fingers trailing a straight line up and down my bare back. "I love you, too, Edward."

After a length of time locked in a heavy embrace, I pulled my tee shirt over her head, since hers was still pinned under the leg of the couch. I carefully gathered her hair in my hand and slipped it through the neck hole until it spilled down her back. Before I pulled the hem all the way over her, I bent in and placed a soft kiss against the angry red mark on the centre of her spine – a burn from the friction with the carpet. I pulled my boxers on and stood to make my way slowly over to the poor, abandoned table with the big silver platters and lids.

Bella curled up on the couch that sat askew from the coffee table in front of it, having been manhandled by me all night. She curled her legs up against her and laid her sleepy head against the arm of the couch, her big doe eyes looking up and me in that wild-hair-post-lovemaking-innocent way she had of taking my breath away. Her little toes wiggled at the edge of the gold and white couch cushion and caught my eye. I smiled sweetly at her, love flooding through my every limb.

"Hungry?" I asked with a smile as I pushed the cart toward the couch.

"Famished."

"Well let's see if any of this is salvageable," I joked as I pulled the lids off the platters.

We both laughed.

"Pizza?" Bella wondered aloud.

I was wondering the same thing. The resort was known across the state for its exemplary dining and a couple _pizzas_ were sent to our room. Granted, they were beautiful pizzas with what looked like baked chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, and fresh cilantro, and a crème fresh drizzle, but they were still just pizzas.

I pulled two beers from the stocked mini-fridge I shrugged and came back to plate a slice for Bella. I popped the lids off the beers and we clanked the necks of the bottles together in salute. We took big hearty swigs while enjoying our pizza, which to be honest, was delicious and perfect.

I briefly pondered if my father intentionally had a meal arranged that he knew would taste good when eaten cold. _Very _cold.

* * *

How much do we flove Daddy Carlisle? Right?

Running intervention that one Christmas Eve night, the kiddie dump truck story, the talk in the closet, the quiet compassion, the cold pizza...

*sighs*

There's a few pics of the bridge and resort on my profile page as well as a link to The Woodmark.

I have actually been there a few times and if you live nearby it's a great weekend getaway, highly rec it!

Up next: We find out some answers.

What's bothering Edward, what's in that envelope, what was wrong with Charlie...

Love me!  
Air

~xox~


	30. Trust Me

Ohai.

*waves*

So..here's the thing.

If you write smut, you are constantly envisioning it in your mind.

If you are constantly envisioning smut in your mind, you get rather randy.

When you get randy...well...to make a long story short; My eggo is preggo yo!

Yeah, so that explains the recent delay. My insomnia has been replaced by a constant need to sleep ALL the time.

As you can imagine, this is highly inconvenient for writing smut.

*mutters*

Stupid vicious circle.

LOL

But here you go h00rs. Enjoy. And heed my advice!

hahaha

(ps: I joke, my husband and I were trying for this, but that kinda sucks the humour out of the situation, yes?)

* * *

My eyes opened. I felt Bella's fingers running through my hair and I heard gentle words whispering in my ear. I shot upright before I realised I was moving. Bella gasped in surprise and recoiled before she recovered and quickly crawled over the bed to me. Her arms wrapped around me. My hair was stuck to my forehead and I had kicked all beautiful gold and cream blankets off the bed we were in.

The night before we had stayed up late talking and laughing over the cold pizza until the clock read well into the morning hours. We joked that we didn't know if we should retire to bed or not given that the itinerary was blank until noon the next day. Eventually, I carried Bella into bed and we fell asleep quickly, wrapped around one another. The soft feel of her fingertips running across my lower abdomen and her delicious, sweet scent enveloped me. I hoped it would help me sleep better than I had been recently.

Apparently, it did not.

Bella was staring at me with those wide, brown, worried eyes that I hated seeing on her. Her heart and capacity to care for others was at times stronger than what she allowed for herself even. Bella was selfless and compassionate. She knew something had been bothering me. Neither of us knew what. Only my subconscious knew. Every time I slept miserably or woke up panting and sweaty, I remembered nothing but was left with a vague sense of devastation – an emptiness that I couldn't formulate into words or associate with any images.

I tried. I wanted to figure out what was bothering me. Logically, I knew it had something to do with Bella. My mind told me it was just the culmination of my growing frustration with how goddamn slow time seemed to tick. I hated time. It was always my enemy. The beautiful, tender moments with Bella that I cherished flew by, while every second spent in her absence, alone and miserable in New York, dragged derisively. There was nothing I could do about it. Time was time and all I could do - all _we _could do - was wait.

I had four years left in my PhD program. I had come too far to walk away – not that Bella would let me even if I suggested it. She was beginning her internship with a large firm in Arizona next month and would be receiving her degree in June, hoping to be offered a permanent position with the paper…in Arizona. I knew she had tried to come to New York, just as I had tried to transfer to a closer PhD program, but it just wasn't in the cards. Everything was too complicated and no matter which move we made, someone would be sacrificing for the other. We were both too stubborn to allow it. We were officially at an impasse of the most painful kind.

I tried not to be too bitter about it. I figured, if the universe handed me my soul mate at three months old, I really didn't have any room to complain. I was a lucky man. I knew that. I felt it in every fibre of my body. I saw it when she smiled at me. I heard it when her laughter danced in my ears and when my arms felt full and content with her weight. I just had to learn to be a very lucky and _patient _man. I had always sucked at being patient. Go figure.

The restless nights had begun months ago in New York. Back then they were slow and intermittentt. They were less intense and didn't haunt me all day afterward. They had grown progressively worse over the summer since I had been home with Bella, which was odd since she usually had the opposite affect on me.

As it was, Bella's fingers steadily combed through my sweaty hair while her head rest on my shoulder. She said nothing and asked nothing of me. She was just there. She was the definition of patient.

I leaned back against the padded headboard and put my arm around her, pulling her tighter to me. I had finally stopped shaking but my head was still a muddled, foggy mess. I felt a deep sadness that I couldn't place and my fingertips dug deep into her flesh, affraid of what would happen if I loosened my grip. She didn't complain.

"I honestly have no idea what the hell is wrong with my head," I muttered, forcing one hand to relax against her, smoothing it up and down her bare arm. My chin rest atop her head.

Nothing but silence answered me. There was nothing to say.

"I just…" I needed to give her something. I was really trying...but it was like reaching around blindly into an empty cavern with no idea what the hell I was even trying to wrap my fingers around. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting frustrated." It was a pathetic way to cut off any attempt at real insight, giving in to the aggravation with a generic growl. Bella deserved better, but what could I do?

She sighed and laced her fingers through both of my hands, hugging my arms around her tighter.

"Want to go find some breakfast before we have to head down to the spa?" she asked. It was obvious her voice was light and forced, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

"Sure," I shrugged and she climbed off the bed.

We showered separately. Bella went in first and I had every intention of climbing in behind her, but before I knew it she was leaning against the bathroom door, naked and towel drying her hair. She regarded me with a serious look, even if she tried to soften it with a smile.

I was zoned out, staring at my hands as they fiddled absently in my lap with blurry eyes. I hadn't moved as much as an inch since she went into the bathroom.

I got up and kissed her forehead as I walked by her to shower.

Breakfast was good. We ate on the patio of the café on the main floor of the resort. The lake was large enough that the water ebbed and flowed with the wind, providing a calm environment to help stabilize the chaos in my head. We didn't talk much but the air was comfortable around us. We watched the yachts as they came and went. The groundskeepers and several staff members were busy setting up the grand terrace beside the cafe for a wedding that would be taking place later in the evening. They elegantly tied chairs with copper-coloured sashes and lined them up with practiced precision. An alter was created at the head of the terrace directly above the lapping edge of the lake. A woman with an earpiece and a walkie-talkie barked out orders as we ate.

It was a little tense back in the hotel room, yet whatever it was that was bothering not only myself, but had now wormed its way into Bella's consciousness as well, we made a genuine attempt to leave it behind us when we shut the door and made our way down to the spa.

We had a few hours to kill but since the room upstairs had been so stifling, we opted to spend it outside. We walked the elaborate gardens hand in hand. I laughed at Bella as she screeched and curled into me when she saw a large spider crawling along the handrail of the little wooden bridge that crossed the creek. She glared and pretended to be offended when I laughed at her. We wove in along the cobblestone path and through the flowers and statues. As Bella was leaning over a plaque reading about the old shipyard, I crawled my finger up her neck and over her ear. She yelped and swatted at my hand and looked so angry it made me laugh even harder at her as she jumped around and shuddered, goosebumps springing up along her arms.

"Aw, I'm sorry," I said, almost keeping a straight face. She scowled at me and it was all I could do to not laugh uncontrollably.

We headed back toward thru the lobby and out the other doors to the far end of the marina. We were seated on a bench on the edge of the walkway overlooking the lake.

"What do you think we get to do at the spa?" Bella asked, taking a small sip of mimosa that the concierge offered her as we passed by.

Despite the nagging blackness of my own subconscious, I couldn't help ride out the genuine happiness that I always felt around Bella as I looked away from the water and down at her. She had her delicate fingers around the stem of her glass, spinning it in circles. Her eyes were bright and her smile was so sweet that my insides turned molten and my eyes pricked. I knew it annoyed the shit out of everyone when I got inside my own head so much, but Bella never once held it against me. On the contrary, signs of her unconditional love for me were in evident her every attempt to ease me, distract me, and satisfy me. I chased the pull of my own frustrations from the surface and kissed the tip of her nose.

"I don't know, but isn't the spa kind of a girly thing?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her sceptically. "Like, shouldn't you do that and I can go…I don't know…_hunt_ something, or…something." We both cracked up laughing at sheer idea.

"I think that would kind of defeat the purpose there, Conan. The point is to relax _together, _right?"

I just smiled. Really, what more could I do. Sometimes there just weren't words for how I felt about Bella, or how she was capable of warming me.

After our walk we followed the signs to the NWF spa that was situated deep into western wing of the resort. We pushed through the thick glass doors and it was like immediately entering a different world. The resort itself was luxurious and peaceful, but the lobby of the spa was something else entirely. The walls were made of a rough, floor-to-ceiling limestone with water trickling down them. It bubbled softly as it met the basin that ran the perimeter of the room where fresh water lilies floated freely.

The reception desk was made of matching limestone and there were several overstuffed, grey club chairs in the waiting area made of a leather that looked so supple I hoped I would get to sit in them just so I could feel its softness for myself. There were no clocks in the room, no magazine racks, and no display stands encouraging you to purchase their products. The room was tranquil in its simplicity.

A woman in a long grey smock and her dark hair tied back came around the corner. She beamed at us with a smile so broad I thought it must hurt. Then, I remembered the way the man at the front desk had smiled at us. And the room steward. My suspicion bled even further into everything that we did and I briefly wondered if the envelope would offer any answers as to what my father had arranged for us and why.

I didn't have much time to give in to my suspicious tendencies before the woman, who introduced herself as Luce, led us down a long hallway and up a spiralling flight of stairs. We were on an open loft that overlooked the spa's lobby on one side and had a panoramic window facing the gardens on the other. The connecting wall was covered with the same limestone and waterfall features as the lobby at the back of the loft with a single door at its centre.

"This will be your room for the day," Luce said with a deep smile both on her lips and in her eyes. She extended a key card from a retractable chord at her hip and slid it along the lock. After the door clicked, she opened it and propped it open, waving her hand toward the door encouraging us to enter ahead of her.

Before we could, the sweet smell of fresh flowers and eucalyptus wafted out of the open doorway. Bella's eyes slid over to mine and she smiled and bobbed her shoulders excitedly, a faint blush decorating the apples of her cheeks.

"After you," I mouthed silently, not wanting to disrupt the serenity around us.

I followed Bella into the room, which turned out to be almost an exact replica of the lobby downstairs. The walls and waterfalls were the same, the floor was the same grey slate, and there were several pieces of furniture in the soft grey leather. The difference was that this room was obviously designed to be enjoyed by only two people. There was a white faux-fur rug on the left side of the room, where a loveseat and coffee table made of dark wood sat. A fire blazed beside the sitting area. On the right was the same loveseat with extended cushions so that it more resembled a bed. Against the back of it were large white throw pillows with teal and grey patterns. There was a tall champagne bucket beside the bed with several pre-opened bottles nestled in the ice. Two glasses and a bowl of chilled fruit sat on the low table beside the bed, along with a tray of strawberries dipped in what looked like white chocolate with dark drizzling. Soft music filled the air, comprised of nothing but gentle wind whistles and bells tones, a lapping ocean, and slow cadences that wove their way deep inside to set me further at ease.

On the back wall were three more doors. The place was like a never ending maze of calm luxuriousness. Despite my earlier misgivings, I was kind of excited to see what was behind each of the doors, especially with Bella beside me.

Luce explained in a soothing tone that came from years of working at such a peaceful place, that we had the entire room to ourselves until midnight if we wished and that all of the services available were to be scheduled at our own pace. She opened the three doors and explained their purposes, showing us the grey call buttons next to the second and third doors that we were free to press when we were ready.

Until then, she told us to enjoy the lobby and the first room and pointed to the main call button by the front door that lead to the landing of the loft, saying that if we needed anything at all, someone would be with us immediately. She told us that a meal would be awaiting us outside the main door on the loft shortly, which we were free to bring into the room at our leisure. She smiled and backed out of the room and the door closed softly behind her.

Bella and I stood immobile for what had to have been at least five minutes before we even blinked and looked toward the other.

"Holy shit," Bella whispered, breaking the silence between us, making me chuckle at her.

"Right?" was the only thing I could force out of my frozen mouth.

The room was elegant and peaceful. The set-up was impressive, and the fact that we had it for twelve relatively uninterrupted hours with nothing but physical indulgences literally at our fingertips was almost too much to comprehend.

Bella drifted into the first room on the left and I slowly followed her. The room was dimly lit with the same soothing music pumped into it. It smelled of sweet flowers. There was a giant claw-leg tub in the corner made of grey ceramic and encased in stone. There were three steps to help us climb in. The water was full with steam rolling off the top. A thin gleam of bath oils glimmered on the surface below large white flowers and pale pink rose petals.

Behind the tub was a stone table with two nicely folded bathrobes and several grey towels. There were hooks on the wall and a basket where I presumed we could discard our clothing for the day. Two pairs of slippers sat on the floor beside the table. The far corner had a walk-in stone shower with several large rainfall showerheads. Inside the shower was a lip at about eye-level along the back wall away from the water's reach. The ledge was lined with the flickering flames of candles. Vases and bowls overflowing with soft white flowers and long, sweeping greenery filled the corners of the rooms and several of the little tables. I had never experienced anything like this and it was only getting started. I was beginning to better appreciate why women raved about the spa so often.

When I finally finished taking in every detail of the room, I realised Bella's eyes were on mine. I shook my head, at a total loss for words. She smiled and began undressing, which did not help my mental stuttering situation.

"I don't know about you, but I'm climbing into this tub. Look at it, Edward. It's amazing." She spoke in that high-pitched, fast-paced way she had of speaking when she was really excited and could not contain herself.

Who was I to deny the woman? I quickly shed every once of clothing I had.

I climbed slowly into the tub and sunk down deep until the water was over my shoulders. Bella sat on my lap so that the water would not cover her ears. Whatever was in the water made it smooth and silky without feeling girly or overpowering. Candles flickered off of every surface in the room and the water. Bella and her half wet, half dry head relaxed against my chest. I melted into the water and the comforting weight of Bella's body against mine, feeling at peace with myself for the first time in months.

"This feels phenomenal," Bella purred, her arms outstretched and her palms floating blissfully against the surface of the water. I hummed in response with nose buried against the crook of her neck. Her head leaned into mine. I slid my hand along her stomach and pulled her firmer against my chest. The tip of my thumb brushed against one nipple while my pinky finger slid inches below her belly button. Just as my thoughts began to unwind and drift in a very pleasant direction, she startled me by sitting upright unexpectedly. Water sloshed over the edge of the tub and my eyes shot open.

"Ooh! Hang on a sec," squeaked, and then I felt an emptiness against my limbs as she climbed out of the water.

My heavy eyes followed her, watching her naked little behind as she padded out of the room, leaving wet foot prints and a trail of drip marks behind her. An easy, peaceful smile stretched across my face as I lolled my head to the side to wait for her return.

She came back in with a smile, giggling at the cold contact of the chilled champagne bottle with her heated skin. She pulled it from the crook of her arm and sat it on the highest step at the side of the tub along with the two glasses. She laid the bowl of fresh fruit with several added dipped strawberries next to the glasses, and then carefully stepped over them to get back in the water, using my hand to balance her.

I filled the glasses, handing one to her first, noticing every word written on the label was in French. Bella settled against me again in a spot made specifically for her body to occupy.

After several minutes with nothing but the music dancing around the room, Bella spoke. "Do you know what my favourite flower is?" she asked in a slow voice.

I peered down at her. Her eyes were shut and a faint smile played at her lips. Her cheeks were flushed. It was no longer from the slight embarrassment of the rooms, but rather from the warm tub and the champagne. Once I was done gazing adoringly at her sweet face I remembered that she had asked me a question.

_Shit. _ A question… that I didn't actually know the answer to. How was that possible? I knew everything about Isabella. Her fingers toyed with a few flower petals thoughtfully while I panicked, entirely focused on her fingers little movements while I wracked my brain.

After a few minutes she giggled and turned around to face me, swinging one leg on either side of my thighs. "Edward, _I _don't even know what my favourite flower is. Who the hell knows the real names of most flowers anyway? But these are really pretty," she said, fiddling with a whole white dahlia. How I knew the name of it and she didn't was beyond me. Perhaps from all my days spent helping my mother in the garden when I was a kid.

I glared at her the best I could with a big grin on my face. "That's not very nice. I was actually panicking for a minute that there was something I didn't know about you. Just the idea is kind of heartbreaking."

"Aww. Consider us even," she snickered and offered me a kiss. Her lips met mine and I was surprised at how warm and wet they were, tasting of the sweet imported champagne.

I ran my tongue along her lower lip and she quickened the kiss, settling deeper into my lap and lacing her arms around my neck. Her flute tipped and cold champagne spilled down my back, causing me to flinch and groan at the same time. Bella giggled at my expense at me, until she slid over me in a very delicious sort of way from all the play-jostling. Particularly aroused parts of our bodies rubbed together in a way that shot sharp splinters of pleasure through both of us. Her eyes darkened and she smiled impishly at me, as if I was in any kind of position to object to whatever she was planning.

I twisted until I could reach the hand that had her empty glass in it and sat it next to mine on the step. Then, in one fluid lift, I was entirely encircled by Bella. Her lips whispered at my ear while her arms lay across my shoulders. Fingertips scratched at my scalp as she pressed her chest against mine. I was buried deep inside her. She was everywhere and I was right there with her.

"Shit," I breathed out as she used the water's buoyancy to lift and settle herself against me in a way that had my insides coiled way too quickly. Her fingers twisted in my hair until she pulled my head back to rest against the edge of the tub. My mind was nothing and I couldn't have been happier as I submitted to her.

Above the music the floated around us, I could hear my own moans as she moved over me, slowing her pace for both of our benefit. The noises that came out of me were loud and satisfied-sounding with every stroke of her body as it gripped and pleasured me. If we were any other two lovers in the world I may have tried to stifle them out of modesty. But Bella and I had never felt the need to filter ourselves with one another. She unapologetically controlled me, and as slow as her movements were, the sensations were an aching crescendo inside me, that I happily enjoyed.

I was too far gone to form the words to respond to all the lovely things she whispered in my ear. Words that professed love and patience. Words that told me she would always be there for me. Words that sailed through my ears and resonated in that dark place that had been bothering me, casting pinhole rays of light into the black with her every declaration.

My hands rest idly on her hips, heavy and limp, moving only with her direction. When her words began to merge into breathy moans of her own I slid my hands down her thighs, angling them inward until my thumbs met at her centre. I stroked and pet – never opening my eyes or lifting my head, until she exploded around me. Her lips were on my neck and she whimpered as she came. Her voice was broken and quiet, her cries came in patches and my name trembled on her lips and in my ear. My eyes were squeezed shut and there was no way I could have known that her tears were mixed in with the bathwater that splashed around us.

Her body went rigid and before it had a chance to relax, my fingers dug deep into her flesh as I groaned through my own release. I panted out her name until stars speckled the black backdrop of my closed eyelids and we stumbled through the finish line together.

Our breath eventually eased. Bella's fingertips made slow trails along my arms while her lips moved along my neck and the tops of my shoulders. Her tongue lapped at the water that dripped down my chest.

Somehow, I was still seeing stars.

"Can we have flowers like this at our wedding?" she asked in a quiet voice.

Before I recognised the significance behind the words, I wondered how it was she was able to speak so easily while I was still struggling to focus on the sound.

"Huh?" I groaned, unintelligent and flailing as I dragged myself to the surface and forced my eyes open.

Bella was rocked back onto my knees, facing me with a broad grin and one of the dahlias on her open palm directly in front of my face. She giggled at my expense.

"Aw," she cooed and scratched her fingertips through my hair and behind my ears before she dipped down and kissed my chin. She sat back and smiled at me. "Poor, spent, little Edward. I was asking... When we get married, can we have flowers like this? They are so pretty but simple, you know?"

"Jesus, Bella." Her eyes were so big and bright and her tone so clear.

"What?" She narrowed her eyes at me.

I arched an eyebrow and inhaled deeply through my nose, trying to steady myself. Words were floated around in my head in a jumbled mess that I was clearly unable to force into coherent sentences.

"You can pick some of the flowers, too, if you like. I'm just saying that I like this one," she scowled, misinterpreting my maundering.

I laughed and closed my eyes again, shaking me head and happily succumbing to the blanket of contentment that was wrapped around me. She could have anything she wanted at _our wedding. _

My fingers massaged little circles into Bella's hips and ass cheeks as I rest my head against the back of the tub. "That's called a dahlia. I have no idea why I know that, I just do. And yes, I think those would be perfect flowers to have at our wedding, Bella. They remind me of you."

_Beautiful. Effortless. Classic. Pure. _

I opened one eye to survey her. Her smile was broad and her eyes absolutely sparkled. Dark hair snaked around the wet, porcelain skin of her shoulders and arms, while her cheeks were bright red from her previous exertion. She was like a naked goddess perched on top of my lap and planning out our wedding.

Her smile widened. "When _are_ we going to stop living in sin, anyway?" she joked.

"Tomorrow if it was up to me," I murmured, opening both eyes.

It was more difficult than usual to evoke the usual image of Bella in soft whites with long, dark hair down her back that usually flit through my mind whenever I thought about our wedding day. Difficult because she was the embodiment of nude sensuality as she bit her lip and bat her eyelashes at me with her bare breasts just a hair's breath from my lips while my palms happily cupped her bottom.

"And who is it up to exactly?" she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest and breaking my silent musings.

"Well…_me_, I guess. And you," I stammered. I didn't mean for her to take my statement so literally. "Why? Do you want to get married now, while we're still in school?" She suddenly had my full attention. I would do it. I just needed…

"No silly, I was just playing with you," she said, turning around and settling herself between my legs again. The water level was significantly lower than it was when we first got in. She sat on the floor of the tub with my bent legs on either side of her.

We fed each other pieces of the fresh fruit while we soaked up the last bit of warmth the tub had to offer.

"Do you want to try one of the strawberries?" Bella asked, holding it over her shoulder for me.

I narrowed my eyes at the back of her head as she took a bite of the strawberry. She now knew all about my aversion to chocolate.

"Ooh," she purred as she licked the melted confection off her finger and thumb. "That's not chocolate. I think it's some kind of yogurt or something. It's not overly sweet. You'd like it."

She offered me another one. She was right of course, it was the perfect combination of tart and sweet and I did in fact like it. However, more than anything else, I liked watching Bella smirk at me as she climbed higher onto my lap to feed them to me.

Once the water had lost all of its heat, we climbed out and wrapped ourselves in the robes. Bella padded out to the other room and opened the front door to pull in the trolley of food that was waiting for us.

We took our time, relaxing nearly-nude on the leather bed. I was right; it was so soft it was almost a sin. We picked through the sandwiches and salads that were on the trolley. We even took a little nap nestled against one another with our robes draped over us and the warmth of our skin pressed together. When we awoke we pressed the call button on the second door and waited for someone to come greet us.

Two girls came in and gave us instructions to hang our robes on the back of the doorway and climb under the heated covers. We did as we were asked, crawling onto the U-shape table. We propped our heads on bent arms and faced one another, our other arm extended to meet on the flat surface that joined at our heads. We smiled softly at each other, holding hands as the ladies knocked lightly and re-entered the room.

Over two hours later and blissfully sated, we were directed by our own request into the third treatment room. A built in bench covered in pillows stretched along the back wall with a basin in front of it. We climbed up and Bella sat between my legs as both of our feet dangled into the same tub. We were worked on by a girl who kept smiling at us sweetly; not at all bothered by the nonconventional way we were seated.

She and Bella chatted nicely while she worked. My fingers toyed idly with the tips of Bella's hair where it fell down her back between us. I relaxed and listened to the girls chatter until I realised they were giggling about me and how men always claim to hate the spa but in actuality rather enjoy it. I pinched Bella's hip and made a face at her as she squealed and elbowed me back into submission.

After the pedicures, we were moved to another chair for more treatments to our faces, and then back into the second room where we were scrubbed down with some sort of coconut mixture. The sweet scent reminded me of Bella.

We were abandoned after that and found ourselves back in the limestone shower back in the first room rinsing the scrub off and then making love again as I lifted Bella off the floor, wrapped her legs around my waist, and slowly glided us to release against the wall. The candles bounced off the stone in the small space above us as our cries and the coconut-suragry-sweet-steam filled the air.

We collapsed onto the bed in the front room. Our mouths watered at the rich aromas that poured in through the crack under the front door to the loft. I heaved my exhausted body off the bed and found another trolley with dinner awaiting us outside.

The food was rich and exquisite. The atmosphere was intoxicating. Bella was radiant as she giggled easily over our meal and hummed in enjoyment with each bite. She made it easy to love her.

I had never before felt as harmonious as I did when we walked down the stairwell and exited the spa. The pale brown and white carpeting lined the hallway in both directions outside the doors and in front of the elevators where we waited to go back to our room, bringing an end our night of extravagance.

While we waited hand in hand for the elevator to come to call, I was torn between wanting to collapse against the bed and pass out the moment we got back into the guest room, or to make love with Bella again first. It was a testiment to how utterly exhausted I was that sleep was actually winning out between the two.

The doors pinged as they opened, but before I could reach out and select the third floor, Bella pushed the button to the garage.

The doors that were in the process of closing in front of us halted, sputtered, and reopened in confusion. When they slowly began to close again in decision I tore my tired eyes from them to Bella. Her teeth worried at her lower lip and a deep wrinkle was etched between her brows. Her eyes were almost apologetic.

"What's going on?" I asked, reaching out and wrapping my fingers around her hand where it toyed with the hem of her tee shirt.

"Sorry, don't be mad. I don't want to ruin such a perfect day or anything, but… Aren't you dying to know?" The line just above the bridge of her nose deepened and she flattened her lips together in a thin line.

The envelope. Of course.

It was ledt behind in the pouch of the driver seat when we loaded our bags onto the bellhop's dolly the day before.

"No problem," I said with a shrug just as the doors opened into the concrete bunker.

I followed Bella toward space seventy-nine where the valet card we were given on arrival said my father's SUV was parked. There was an attendant at the kiosk in the middle of the parking garage. While Bella continued toward the car I went over and spoke with him.

It wasn't the same kid as the day before. He believed me that it was our car, but I hadn't brought my wallet or the valet pass with me. Without the proper ID he could not hand over the keys, which I respected. But one look at Bella wringing her fingers and digging her toe into the concrete by the back passenger door of the vehicle told me that I didn't want to waste time going all the way back upstairs to retrieve the necessary items, so I made the kid a deal. There was a hidden keyless-entry pad on the side of the driver door. He agreed that if I could easily open the car with the code that he would be comfortable allowing us to retrieve our items from the backseat.

I swiped my hand across the hidden keys and they lit up welcoming me. With the valet's eyes on me from his station, I entered the five digits and heard the locks clicking as they slid open. I popped open the front door and hit the button to unlock the remaining doors so Bella could climb in. I nodded at the valet, who nodded back, and I joined Bella in the backseat.

She was already holding the envelope by the time I climbed in. I pulled the door shut, unsure if we were going to open it in the backseat or take it upstairs. The package trembled in her hands. It broke my heart to know she was uneasy and that technically there was nothing I could do to help. We just had to open it up. I had no idea why she was so convinced that whatever was in it was going to be upsetting, but between my mother, sister, and Bella in my life, I had learned never to second-guess women's intuition.

I removed the envelope from her fingers and set in on the seat beside me as I scooted closer to her, not caring about its contents for a moment, only wishing to bring her a little comfort. I put my arm around her and pulled her in for a long, steadying embrace. We had such a beautiful day, I was disappointed that it was coming to a sombre close; however, I acknowledged that Bella needed answers. She tended to be extremely undemanding, so whenever she did have a request, pleasing her was my weakness.

Pushing back the hair that had long ago frizzed with from the humidity in the spa, I kissed her temple and whispered in her ear.

"Why are you so nervous, Bella? This envelope isn't necessarily a bad thing, you know?" I smoothed my palms down her cheeks and cupped her face, holding her so she couldn't divert her eyes and hide what was going on behind them. I knew that was awfully unfair of me, but sometimes her eyes were all I had to go off. Luckily, she answered me anyway.

"Just the way my dad was acting after your mom dropped me off. I went upstairs to take a shower and when I came down she was gone and dad was weird. I told you, I swear he was upset about something and when he said goodnight he hugged me…hard. And every time I tried to pull back he just kept hugging me. That's not like him, Edward, you _know _that. So I don't know...there's obviously something going on and whatever it is, this stupid, damn envelope will tell us and I'm just… I'm scared that…"

Her words were coming in stunted pants and I knew it was long past time to intervene. I silenced her with my lips to hers. I kissed her softly. I tasted the salt as her tears slid down her cheeks and into our joined mouths. I swallowed them without hesitation.

I continued to hold her head against mine firmly. When I finally pulled back, I gave her a long look in the eye, promising her that no matter what was in the envelope we would be okay. I still wasn't convinced it was something bad.

"Bella, baby… Do you really think that if there was anything that crucial, that devastating in here, that our parents would just hand it to us and send us off to discover it alone?" Her eyes were sill leaking but she snivelled and smiled and shook her head. "Exactly. Obviously not. So, whatever is in here is _not _a bad thing, okay?" I lowered my head so my nose touched hers and our eyes were level. "Okay?" I repeated more firmly until she sniffed and nodded in agreement.

I kissed away her tears and picked up the envelope. I turned it over repeatedly in my hands wondering a few things myself. The same way I had the day before, I smoothed my palm along its entire length, feeling for anything beyond papers.

"You open it. Peek in and get an idea of what's in there first. Please, Edward?" Her voice was quiet, her face pinched with suppressed tears. I had to admit, I was desperate to tear the goddamn thing in half and reveal how benign it was just so that we could laugh about it and move on. So I nodded, kissed her on the apple of her cheek, and sat back to open it.

I pulled back the metal claws and snapped open the top. Suddenly, Bella's nerves were infiltrating my resolve and I found myself anxious of what I might discover. The car was stifling. I propped open the top with my two fingers, spreading it so I could peer inside.

The first thing I saw looked like a stapled group of photocopies. They were harmless on first glance, but I suppose it would matter what they were that would be the ultimate factor. I pushed them aside to see what was underneath. It was a sheet of lined paper with handwriting that I instantly recognised as my mother's. However, it was the small glimpses I saw of the pieces that sat at the very bottom of the envelope that made me close it immediately in decision.

I smiled up at Bella in the most reassuring way that I could force my muscles to work.

"What is it?" she gasped, releasing a breath I wasn't sure she was aware she was holding. Her chest rose and fell quickly as she caught up.

"It's nothing bad. But do you trust me?" I asked, already knowing that she did, with everything she had.

Bella rolled her eyes in response and I couldn't help myself from laughing a little, hopefully conveying a crystal clear message.

"Okay then, let's go upstairs and get a better look at this in our room. Please?" I made sure that my tone was even and light. She narrowed her eyes at me. Her hand reached out and tried to grab the envelope but I was faster.

"Ah, ah, ah," I chided her with a look of mock reprimand on my face. "If you trust me then slid your lovely little ass off the seat and march it upstairs, please." Just to be sure I had made my point, I leaned over her and opened the door, then proceeded to push her out of the car with my foot planted on her side.

"Okay, okay," she yelled, swatting my foot away.

I smiled and jumped out of the vehicle behind her. Gliding my hand over the hidden keys, I held down the bottom two buttons until the locks clicked and the dome light dimmed. I rounded the car and took Bella's hand in mine.

"It's not bad? Do you promise?" she asked as we waited for the elevator.

"So much for trust," I grumbled and brought her fingers that were laced through mine to my lips.

"Edward." It was a warning.

"Okay. You may get upset, but it's nothing bad. I would never lie to you, Isabella." I pressed the glowing number three and the doors closed. The look I gave her levelled her. She nodded and steadied herself with our joined hands as she leaned up on her tiptoes to give me a slow kiss.

I handed Bella the key card from my back pocket and followed her into the room. The door closed loudly behind us.

The cleaning service had been in the room since we left it in the morning. The bed was made, the parlour furniture was straightened and the dishes from the night before were cleared off the coffee table.

Bella trailed behind me as I entered the bedroom. She stood there watching me while I tossed the envelope on the bed and knelt to dig through the duffle bag of our things that we had yet to unpack.

I could feel her eyes watching me while I moved. I had a feeling it might be a long night and I was determined to make Bella as comfortable as possible before we began. I wasn't sure how she was going to react. A thousand memories of a broken little girl with body-wracking sobs soaking through my tee-shirt haunted me. I desperately wanted to take away anything in her life that could potentially cause her that level of pain. But I knew that was selfish. It was through her pain that she found herself. Her strength, her truest friends, her courage, her stubborn determination… It was out of the ashes of severe heartache and loss that she had learned to fully appreciate all the wonderful things life could show her. Such as our love.

However, _my _love for Bella had always been driven by an overwhelming greed for her. And selfishly, I wanted to protect her from even happy memories if they threatened to bring an ounce of pain with them. I was utterly torn about the envelopes worth.

My fingers touched something soft and delicate and I refocused my eyes on my task at hand. I pulled out a pale blue tank top with matching satin shorts.

Directing Bella slowly like a worried animal toward the bed, I lay her pyjamas beside me and slowly lifted her shirt. She raised her arms compliantly above her head and let me slip the tank top on her. I gently tied the satin ribbon at the back and then helped her into her bottoms. Her eyes studied me warily, but she had already professed her trust in me, so she bit her tongue and refused to question me.

I appreciated the silence as my mind flew, outlining every possible reaction and how I should handle each one. I had yet read the words that were written inside the envelope, but I had seen enough to appreciate the general contents.

I pulled the hair elastic from around Bella's wrist and gathered her hair behind her. I sucked at operating the simple circular contraption, but managed to comb my fingers through her hair and tie a loose ponytail that lay in a straight line down the center of her back.

My hands lay gently against her hips and I turned her around to face me. With a soft kiss to the tip of her nose, I smiled at her.

"Now you're ready. Thank you." She knew what I was thanking her for.

I climbed onto the bed, kicked off my own shoes and pat the mattress beside me in invitation. Her eyes held a heavy scepticism, but she crawled up and sat in front of me cross-legged with large brown eyes that I took a few minutes to appreciate.

Their depths were endless and I would never tire of staring into them. I would never grow bored of all the things that lay beneath them – the soft gold flecks and the dots of red, the strength and the insecurity, the love and the resilience. I would never want to look that deep into anyone else's eyes as long as I lived.

It was frightening at times, having a connection that deep with another living person. But I would never trade it. It was what we were made for. To be there for one another and to experience life beside each other. So, with that in mind, I popped open the top of the envelope and slid everything out onto the bedspread between us.

* * *

Erm...dont hate me, okay?

I know that wasn't the answers we were looking for. Or...ANY answers at all really.

But whoo hoo bathtub-spa-sex, am I right?

I feel badly for the neglect, and so the follow-up chapter will be posted on Sunday.

I PROMISE, that one has everything.

Thanks for the love and patience.

Air

~xox~


	31. Dear Life

Without further delay...

Some answers.

xox

* * *

My eyes were locked on Bella. I already knew the general concept of what was in the envelope, so instead of looking at the upside down items that gave nothing away - just nonthreatening sheets of white in various sizes and stacks - I studied my girlfriend. I waited and I prayed she would be at peace with what she saw, that she could find the joy in the things that also evoked pain.

Her eyes dropped to the bedspread, lifted to mine, and then slowly dropped to the items again.

Cautiously, her hand extended to the first thing on the top of the pile. It was a small white square with a faded electronic date stamp diagonal across the back. May 25, 1981. It was the day Charlie asked Renée to marry him. Bella turned it over.

She mashed her lips together and her eyes shot up to mine again. I knew mine were soft and displayed every ounce of tenderness I had for her. She gave me a weak smile and flipped over the second small white square dated May 30, 1982.

Bella turned over the remaining four pictures, two were dated near the same time as the second one, one was dated the following year, and one was dated years prior - a picture of my parents dancing on a restaurant dance floor looking overwhelmingly happy. She lined them up and covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes shined and one small blink sent two delicate streams down her cheeks. Without hesitation I reached out to wipe them away.

My contact seemed to startle her, reminding her that I was there. She tore her eyes from the pictures long enough to look at me.

"Edward, look at these pictures. They're so young." She giggled and the sound nearly brought tears to my own eyes. I had been so worried that she was going to be distraught by what lay in the envelope. Relief washed through me thick and hot and finally I could relax a little and look at the pictures better myself.

The picture Bella was focused on showed a very smiley Renée holding her hand up to display for the camera a tiny diamond chip on her ring finger. In the background was my dad and with his arm around Charlie. Both men appeared to be joking about something. Knowing my father, I would have bet it had something to do with offering words of wisdom, given that he and my mother had been married for several years by then.

I smiled at the picture and was about to move on to look at another one when something caught my eye. A quick scan of the other pictures confirmed it.

"Bella," I whispered, not entirely sure why I was whispering. "They're _here, _at this resort in all of these photos." That got her attention and she looked at me and then quickly back to the pictures as I began pointing things out. "Look, over my dad's shoulder in this one, that brick building. That is the outside of the hotel cafe. See, you can see the edge of the garden walk beside the pier. And look, in this one, they're eating outside on the grand terrace. And it looks like they are on a yacht in this one." In the background, over the edge of the boat in the distance, through the water, was the large concrete wave breaker that read _Carillon Point._

I continued to sift through the photos as Bella began pointing things out to me as well. The trademark blue awnings of the resort deck by the pier, the flower tucked behind my mother's ear in one picture where she and Renée sat on the same elevated park bench that Bella and I had shared earlier in the morning. The two women smiled happily for whichever one of our fathers had taken the photo.

It was in that picture that one thing was obvious, and had it not been date stamped on the back, we still would have easily been able to guess the month and the year. Both women were pregnant. My mother's hands both rest on the top of her large, round belly, while Renée had one hand over her slightly smaller stomach and the other delicately placed over my mother's knee while they giggled about something. It was the beginning of the summer in the year that both Bella and I were born. It was a beautiful photograph.

Tears continued to seep out of Bella's eyes as she absorbed every detail of the six pictures. They were original copies, weathered and aged, faded and curled around the edges. Two of the pictures – the honeymoon photo and one of our father's smoking cigars on a varnished mahogany bench on what appeared to be a yacht at sail – were taken from a different camera than the other four. Those two photos were slightly brighter and had straight corners, whereas the others were yellowed with rounded corners. Both of the photographs with the straight corners also had pieces of old, browned scotch tape flattened out on the back, indicating they had been pulled from a photo album recently. The more I thought about it, the more I vaguely recalled seeing the pictures once or twice in an old album in our den.

My mother was a neurotic photograph cataloguer. She snapped a thousand pictures of every event or random day when the mood suited her, and scrapbooked every last one of them. There was an entire library wall dedicated to row upon row of family photos. I rarely found the time to look at the really old ones, and only seldom found myself sitting in front of any of the others, but I was certain those two had come from my house.

Bella held one where our mother's stood on the edge of the pier with the lake and rows of glamorous Chris-Crafts behind them. Their hands were on their hips with their bellies protruded as they faced each other and smiled widely. The photo must have been taken by my father, because Charlie was in the picture. He stood behind Renée with his arms around her and his open palms splayed lovingly across her small belly. He had a genuine grin on his face as he buried it against his wife's shoulder. It was something that was a rare sight in present days.

Bella's shoulders shook with her quiet sobs. I knew they were soft, bittersweet tears and not the all-consuming cries of her former pain. They were tears I could manage. Tears that I loved.

I let them flow freely, unhindered by a brush of my hand or a kiss from my lips. I watched them pool, break free, and then sprint down her flushed cheeks. It was life. It was beautiful.

"These are incredible pictures," I said quietly, fingering the corner of the one she was gazing at adoringly.

"I know. It makes me want to go home and look at more old photos right away. I can't remember the last time I pulled out a box of pictures and just went through them," Bella said, her voice wavering, but a sweet smile on her face. She was oblivious to the tears streaming down her cheeks. She was oblivious to the obvious… _I _remembered the last time she pulled out a box of old photographs and "just went through them". But I kept my mouth shut.

That was one significant difference between her mother and mine. Renée was horrible at creating photo albums. There was one of Bella as a baby that was _almost _filled up, and that was about it. Even she and Charlie's wedding photos were just thrown into a shoe box that also contained her slippers from the wedding and a garter belt. Every family photo that had ever been taken was stuffed into random boxes and kept sporadically throughout the house, including the few that were in Bella's old bedroom closet. It was one of the many differences that had always made us kids wonder how the two women had ever become such good friends. I guess it was their many idiosyncrasies that made their friendship work so well. It was special and they loved each other unconditionally.

"This one must be the year after we were born," Bella guessed, flipping over a picture of our mother's without their bellies lying out in the sun on the balcony of their guestroom. They had large brown sunglasses on and my mother wore a floppy red sunhat. Renée's hair was cropped short, which was how Bella guessed the year without confirming the date stamp. She had cut her hair once just after Bella was born. Any time Bella saw a picture of her with super short hair Renée would tell her that it was the silliest idea she ever had because Dwyer women had beautiful hair and it was a crime to cut it. Renée was a brilliant woman.

The date on the back read May 29, 1983.

Bella turned the photo back over and closed her eyes. She flopped backward into a pillow next to where I sat and sighed heavily. I ran my fingers through her hair as we let our minds wander in comfortable silence until Bella broke it.

"I guess they came here every year," she said in a slow, whimsical voice stating the obvious.

I just hummed in agreement. There were more pieces of paper to go through, but Bella didn't seem like she was in a hurry to get to them just yet.

"That must be why your dad sent us here. Didn't you say that he said something about my fingerprint on the map being close enough to something that he just couldn't resist redirecting us?"

Again, I hummed in agreement.

I had my eyes closed, a short film reel of the six faded photographs playing in my mind. I found them nostalgic even if technically I wasn't a part of them. Their every emotion was proudly displayed on their faces in each picture. I could practically fill in the blanks for myself and create an entire movie of their summers spent at the Point.

The scenes were beautiful and I longed to ask my mother questions about them. I couldn't imagine the pain of feeling that way and knowing that I had no mother to return home to and gush over the resort with. For the trillionth time since Renée passed away I wished to God that she hadn't – that she had beat her disease, that she had fought harder or had more advanced medicine available. I wished that she had never gotten sick in the first place and more than anything else, I wished that the beautiful, brilliant woman laying beside me chattering about how silly my father looked in his pompous boating outfit and how funny Charlie looked on a fancy yacht in ripped denim shorts, hadn't had such a significant piece of her life ripped away from her so tragically. I hated that Bella lost her mother. I hated that I was always powerless to do anything about the residual pain from that loss. And I hated the memory of how ill she had been in her final days.

I seemed to be the only one brewing about the sadness however. Bella was randomly reaching beside her to pick up a photo and then laugh at it or muse aloud about what they were doing or how happy they looked. I clenched my eyes shut and forced the negative thoughts from my mind so that I wouldn't upset Bella.

When I reopened them I glanced down at her because she had grown quiet. All six photos were stacked on her stomach. Her hands lay over the tops of them pressing them into her as she closed her eyes and breathed slow, peaceful breaths. There was a content smile on her face. I knew that it pleased her just knowing how happy her mother truly was in the few short years she had lived.

"I love you, Bella," I whispered, leaning toward her and kissing her forehead. My voice broke on the words and I hoped she hadn't noticed. Of course…she did.

Her eyes snapped open and found mine. She offered me a genuinely happy smile which I eagerly returned, continuing to comb my fingers through her hair.

"What are the other papers, Edward," she asked in a gentle purr. She was half-asleep with happy thoughts of her mother filling her head, a soothing day of total relaxation behind us, and my fingertips gently running along her scalp through her hair on repeat.

"Why don't you save the papers for the morning?" I hedged, hoping she would heed my advice. Although, given how beautifully she reacted to the photos, perhaps I was overreacting.

She sat upright immediately. Of course.

"Why?"

My own eyes were growing increasingly heavy. A glance at the clock on the nightstand confirmed it was well into the early morning hours.

"Because it's late, we had a long day, and I'm tired. No other reason."

It was an honest answer, but unfortunately it also piqued her interest. She flipped over the lined piece of paper with my mother's handwriting as well as the photocopies.

"This is my mother's handwriting," she gasped holding up the stapled packet.

"I know," I said. "And that's mine." I cracked open my heavy eyes long enough to nod to the single sheet by her knee.

Bella picked up the letter from my mother. I glanced at it from over her shoulder as she read. It was addressed to both of us, though every time she referred to Renée she called her "your mother" so I could tell that she had Bella in mind as she wrote.

The letter began with an apology. My mother explained that they only decided to send us to the Woodmark at the last minute and thus could not prepare anything more elaborate or surely she would have. She explained that while she had been chatting with Charlie after dropping Bella off the night before we left, my father had phoned her with the idea to send us to the resort. She spoke to Charlie and they all agreed that it was a beautiful place that had only grown more elegant with time and that we should, indeed, go there.

Apparently my mother had spent the better part of the hour that Bella was getting ready for bed, with the help of Charlie, unearthing old photographs out of musty cardboard boxes, in order to find a few from their years spent at the resort, which were obviously included in the envelope.

The letter went on to explain that the Woodmark was a brand new resort that was built in the year that my father had asked my mother to marry him. They were married the following spring, and since my father was still slaving away as a hospital intern, they weren't able to vacation far from home for their honeymoon. They chose the Woodmark and the following spring they insisted on returning with their best friends in tow. Every spring after that, during the last week of May, they would return and vacation together at the resort.

My mother told a fun story of the time Charlie tripped on a pile of boat-ties on the pier and had almost fallen in. My father reached out to grab him but Charlie had already corrected himself and so my father caught nothing but air and fell overboard. The water was calm given the manmade breaker walls that had been built just off the coast to contain the marina, but nonetheless, a big fuss was made with several men running out to help pull my father back onto the pier. Once everyone confirmed that he was alright, more embarrassed than anything else, my mother and Renée laughed so hard that my father ended up stomping off with one of the resort workers back to their guestroom, where presumably he dried off and changed out of his wet clothes. My mother joked that he was in a bit of a foul mood for the remainder of the night, but eventually came around after they had made enough jokes that he couldn't help laughing with them over martinis and dinner.

There were several other stories included in the letter before my mother finished by wishing us the best time possible. She said that eventually life had gotten too hectic for the two couples to continue their annual vacations but that now might be an appropriate time for the tradition to be restored somehow. Somehow meaning _us._

She professed her love in a way that only my mother could, bringing fresh tears to Bella's eyes. She signed the letter simply, "Mom".

I finished reading at the same time as Bella. I pulled her ponytail to the side and placed a gentle kiss on the column of her neck.

"We've heard some of these stories before, I don't know how I didn't put two and two together," she whispered, turning the letter back over and running her fingertips lightly down the paper in an affectionate gesture, smiling fondly at my mothers written words.

"It never crossed my mind either," I told her, kissing her delicate skin repeatedly. I wasn't looking to distract her, it was a natural reaction with everything that was floating around inside of me to want to show Bella some affection.

She left my mother's letter on her lap and reached for the photocopies. It only took us a moment to realise what they were. Renée had always kept journals, most of which were now in Bella's possession. However, we had always known that there was one journal which Renée used to keep in her bedside table, that I would guess was still there, which she never shared with anyone. That particular journal was too private. It was where she wrote her intimate feelings for her husband. She took the journal on vacations and documented tales of love. The sheets that had been selected and stapled together were several entries that had been written from their days spent at the Woodmark.

There were funny stories, including a different account of what happened the night my father fell into the pier that apparently involved some scotch at an earlier golf match, as well as stories of romantic dinners with just her and Charlie. It was obvious that some things were omitted, either by a blank sheet of paper covering the words at the time of photocopying, or by entire pages missing altogether. The point was still crystal clear. The entries documented a real love. It was strong and young and optimistic. It was relaxed and carefree, and in the days with nothing to do but lounge in the sun or on a yacht, Renée had gone into detail on how fortunate she felt to be alive and in love.

There were entries from the year Charlie proposed, giving away such beautiful details of the words he declared that I knew my mother had to have put on her most persuasive charm and firm debate-tactics in order to convince Charlie to allow us to read them. Other entries were from the year that both of our mothers were pregnant. While many of the hopes and dreams were replicas of that which Renée had also written in the other journals, the ones that Bella now had, there were new pieces of information that neither of us had ever known.

In one entry Renée recounted the time months prior when she had experience severe abdominal pain. It was very early in her pregnancy and my father had rushed her to the hospital. She recalled patting her flat tummy from the hospital bed and telling the growing life to fight, to survive, and to beat the odds.

I choked back my own tears at the tragic irony of her words. I placed a gentle kiss at the top of Bella's shoulder that was just in front of me, as I pulled her around to lie against my chest. I needed to feel her solid form in my arms. As we read on, Renée continued to reflect, given that the baby _had _survived and as she wrote from a chaise lounge on the sunny balcony of the guestroom patting her growing belly that squirmed and kicked, she hoped her baby would always be such a stubborn little fighter.

I snorted in Bella's ear. She turned and gave me a sad, wet smile. I kissed her tears and we continued to read the entries. When she was done she clutched them, leaned forward and clicked off the bedside lamp and wriggled under the covers.

I didn't dare break the silence in any way, so I quietly slipped off my jeans and tee shirt and climbed under the covers with her. I held her tight and heard the crackle of papers as she snuggled with her back against my chest and the letters and photographs clutched to hers.

"Are you okay?" I whispered, kissing the shell of her ear and ghosting my fingers over her hip.

"Yes. Are you?"

"Of course," I responded automatically, without dedicating any thought as to what she meant.

My eyes slid shut – heavy with emotion and time.

The next thing I knew I was drenched in sweat and writhing haphazardly in the thin sheets of our hotel bed. I bolted upright with a start, images of my nightmare still swirling around my head as I clawed my way from the trenches and back into reality.

Those few short seconds where my mind was still clouded and I thought the dream was my reality were devastating. They felt like an eternity. An eternity spent in regret and mourning.

A drop of sweat trickled from my forehead and down my brow until it dripped into my eye and burned. Slowly, still fighting back the nausea and the nightmare, I brought both fists to my eyes and jammed them into the sockets, rubbing frantically to clear everything from my head. My chest heaved and my entire body shook. For all my desperation to put a finger what had been bothering me over the last several months I now had images in my mind that I would sell my soul to drive away.

I removed my fists from my eyes and they slowly adjusted to the darkness of the hotel room. It was still black outside, amplified by the thick drapery that was pulled shut denying even a hint of light from the moon or the street lamps.

It took all of y energy to force myself to look beside me and face the pain.

Bella.

She was curled up on her side with her back to me. Her skin shone against the black where it peeked out from underneath what little of the sheet I had yet to wrench away from her in my fitful sleep. Tears ran unbridled down my cheeks at the sight of her slight body curled in a way that I knew mine had been moulded to moments ago. Her hair was black in the darkness and contrasted sharply against the creamy white pillowcase. I couldn't see her face well enough to know, but she breathed regularly and wasn't flipping around in her sleep or muttering like she usually did, so I assumed she was undisturbed by my nightmare. Peaceful. Happy.

I needed to wake her.

My hand still trembled as I brought it up to her cheek. I brushed the backs of my knuckles over her jaw and then swept her hair aside, exposing her neck. I pulled the tie from her ponytail that was only _just _staying in her hair due to my poor tying abilities. I threw the elastic on the floor. My breathing hadn't quite caught up with itself and now tears refused to dry up as I looked down at her and saw…everything.

I scooted back down in the bed and draped my arm over her waist. I nuzzled at the back of her neck, gently murmuring to her as tears wet the strands of her hair that were closest to my face. My fingers tightened around her hip and I pulled her harder against me.

I didn't mean to be rough or aggressive. I didn't mean to be anything. I wasn't really thinking. I was just acting. I trusted myself with Bella enough to give myself over entirely to my baser instincts sometimes. And they told me that I needed to feel a real life confirmation of her warm little body. I needed it like I needed air. And I needed it urgently to chase away the darkness that was swirling around me.

"Bella, please wake up," I choked out in something just a bit louder than a breath.

She stirred and wiggled her body against me. It didn't arouse me, that was not what this was about.

"Please." A tear slid over the bridge of my nose and into my other eye as I lay on my side shaking her and tugging at her hip. I blinked it away but refused to remove my hands from Bella's warmth.

Her head ground into the pillow and she groaned. My fingers traced the smooth line of her body. I cupped her breast through the light fabric of her top and then slid my fingers between her thighs. I pulled one leg over mine I pushed against her as I gripped her hip tighter. If she was awake, she would feel me.

"I need you," I whispered into her ear, scooting back and giving a final tug at her hip firm enough to level her flat on her back.

Her eyes blinked open. She squeezed them back together quickly and grumbled.

"Ug. What you _need_ is to go back to sleep, Edward," she muttered, trying to roll back over to her side. My fingers dug deep into her flesh, holding on with everything I had. I knew my fingernails were pricking her delicate skin.

"No," I choked out.

I couldn't see well enough, but her body bristled and I knew she was wide awake now.

"Excuse me?" she spat and I prayed she wouldn't fight me. I didn't have the strength.

"No." The fucking word cracked and more tears poured unbidden down my cheeks. I wished they would stop but I was powerless to fight them. The images in my mind devastated me and there was only one way I could think of in the black of night with Bella's heat lying against me to chase them away.

In blur of ghostly pale movement in the dark room, Bella sat up on her knees with her hands cradling my cheeks. Her fingertips hazarded a guess and swiped at the hollows of my eyes, brushing away the tears that she somehow knew would be there. She pulled me toward her until I was sitting with her.

"What did I miss?" she begged in my ear as she hugged me.

I didn't risk any more verbal communication. It was too strained and ineffective. I leaned my head back against the headboard and took several slow, deep breaths, trying in vain to get a handle on the sorrow freefalling inside me.

It was just a dream. They were just thoughts and fears manifested inside my subconscious. It was frustration and worry and helplessness all crashing into one another and wreaking havoc in my overactive brain. I knew that. _I knew that._ But still…

Her hands lay flat against my bare chest as she slowly climbed onto my lap. She bent down to touch her lips gently to mine. It was barely a real kiss. It was light. Both of us parted our lips at the same time to draw in the breath we would need to make it an honest and more passionate kiss. The cold air between us lapped at the wet skin of my lips as we exchanged oxygen and the baser instincts that I had been allowing to guide me kicked into overdrive. I needed her in more ways than I could ever pray to articulate aloud.

Just as our lips met with more fervour, I pulled her tank top over her head and threw it into the empty darkness at the foot of the bed. Her arms looped under mine, her skin against mine as she hugged me and kissed my chest softly. It felt wonderful.

At length, she balanced herself with her hands on the tops of my shoulders as she stood on the bed and pulled her shorts off, kicking them away from us. I shimmied out of mine and she sank onto me. I filled her completely. Her fingers tangled in my hair but they didn't tug, they just held me to her. Her lips were wet and gentle at my neck and ear. I wrapped my arms around her back and just held her there tight, growling lowly into her shoulder. My body still shook and my eyes still pricked. But she was there. She was against me and I was inside her and she was _there_.

I held her so tight we had very little room to move against one another, but she swivelled her hips over me in a way that proved that it didn't matter. My growls broke into something that resembled a plea as she hugged me and I throbbed inside her. She returned her hands to my cheeks and placed a kiss over my ear.

"I'm here," she whispered quietly. "I'm right here."

"Bella." It was all I had.

The air around us was thick, the smell of sex and us filled it, and it was black. But her nose brushed mine and I could see her eyes clearly. And she could see mine. They told her everything she needed to know to catch-up to what was happening inside me.

Her eyelids slid heavily over her eyes and she sighed, then blinked them back open, the feeling of my movement deep inside beginning to overwhelm her. My mind was everywhere and nowhere all at once and I wasn't even sure if I could climax. That wasn't the real reason that I sought her out.

That being said, when she bit her lip and pressed her forehead against mine with her arms secured around my neck, gasping into my ear while she clenched around me, my body reacted and I came with her. Our chests moved in laboured unison, inflating and collapsing against each other as we quieted. My arms had yet to grant Bella one inch of wiggle room. I wasn't ready yet.

She lolled her head to the side slightly, her forehead still pressed against mine. I opened my eyes and found hers to be hooded but open as well, looking into me.

"I'm right here," she whispered again, her lips brushing against mine as she spoke.

"I know," I choked out. "Thank you."

I was feeling better but also worse. It was the helplessness that had been haunting me for months. And while Bella had eased any traces of leftover anxiety that the dream was real, there was little that could be done about the sense of powerlessness that I carried around with me every day that had led me this breaking point.

Her lips met mine. They were gentle and benevolent. One small, chaste kiss after another, retreating completely after each one before slowly coming back in for more. My bottom lip, each corner of my mouth, my top lip, the hollow beneath each of my eyes, the divot in my chin. With each kiss I reacted too slowly, and as she pulled away I moved to find her again with my mouth, always missing. Her fingers combed through my hair and mine traced lines up and down her spine.

"Are you okay?" she whispered between kisses.

"No."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

More quiet kisses. More lines against the solid little bumps of her spine.

_Reassurance. _

"Did we break up or did I die?"

I choked on the air in my lungs. No images from my nightmares flogged me, but the residual emotions did. Powerless, angry, remorseful guilt. A sorrow that was so deeply embedded into my bones that I couldn't shake it. The feeling of wanting to run until my legs gave out, but not knowing which direction to aim for, knowing that there wasn't a safe place left for me on the entire planet. The desire to scream until my lungs bled, or break something, or shatter everything, or blame everyone and no one all at once. The feeling of knowing that none of any of that shit would make a goddamn bit of difference.

"Please stop talking," I begged.

She pulled away from me. I withdrew from her body and she shimmied down my thighs until she could wrap her arms around my torso and lay her head against my chest that had quieted and then begun heaving again as she questioned me.

Then, there was nothing but silence for a very long time as I held her and she held me. I thought she had fallen back asleep, which made me a little sad but also thankful because she needed her sleep. I didn't feel guilty for waking her. I would never want Bella to feel badly for calling on me and I knew the opposite was true. Nevertheless, I was glad she had drifted off again, for her sake.

My head leaned back against the headboard. I knew we should get up and shower or at least clean ourselves up and return to bed in a more comfortable state, but I didn't have the energy to be bothered. I was spent and Bella was pressed against me. That was all I could need at that moment.

"I love you." Her words were tiny and quiet and slow. Her arms tightened around me. Apparently she hadn't fallen asleep like I thought.

I kissed the top of her head in response and she wriggled against me, getting more comfortable. Somehow, mercifully, we did fall back asleep.

We didn't wake until the late morning when the first of the Carillon bells outside the resort began to toll loudly. They rang for the twelve waking hours during the day and were hard to miss, chiming on both the hour and the half hour.

I blinked slowly as my mind caught up with my body. The room was a muted grey with the drapes drawn shut and streaks of sunlight beaming through each crevice around the window. Bella groaned and shifted against me, reminding me we were naked, uncovered, sticky, and that she was still perched on my lap. That position had to be killing her neck and back.

In the light of day, with the nightmare far behind me, it was easy to feel foolish for being so needy in the middle of the night.

I ran my hands up her naked back, goose bumps springing up in my wake as I trailed up to her shoulders. I gathered her loose hair in one hand and swept it over her shoulder, and then lightly kneaded at the muscles at the tops of her shoulders. She wriggled and sighed contentedly, taking her time to wake up. I kissed her forehead and brought my fingertips around to the sides of her neck, rubbing tight little circles as she tilted her head to grant me more room. My thumbs circled her collarbone and my lips ghosted across any surface I could reach without further disrupting her – soft and unnecessarily apologetic.

There was a lot swarming in my mind, and a question dangled on the tip of my tongue, but I knew better than to ask it. It just didn't make sense right now. But I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep it from surfacing.

So I sat there.

The sun brightened through the spilt in the curtains and lay in a thick line against my shins. I continued to massage Bella's soft skin, hoping to erase away any discomfort from a night spent sleeping in contortion. She was warm and snuggled against my body. She didn't seem like she was in a hurry to get moving.

After a while she groaned and stretched out, pushing herself off me. She sat cross-legged and smiled. I knew she was reading me. She would want to ask about what happened in the middle of the night, but she wouldn't unless I gave her an indication that I was ready.

With soft eyes and a beautiful little smile, she placed a kiss against the tip of my nose and slid off the bed. I couldn't help the smirk on my lips at watching her walk away.

"Are you staring at my ass, Cullen?" she asked playfully without looking back.

"Yup," I replied unapologetically, popping the P and grinning at her backside.

She paused in the bathroom doorway and stretched her arms out to either side of the doorjamb over her head. She shifted her hips side to side, working out the remainder of the kinks in her muscles, and very deliberately waggling her beautiful, bare ass at me.

"Are you going to join me this time?" she asked, looking over her shoulder toward the bed just enough that I could see her face in profile, but not enough to actually make eye-contact with me.

I snarled under my breath. The stretch in her wicked grin told me she heard it.

"Yup!" I repeated and leapt off the side of the bed toward her. She giggled and ran into the bathroom ahead of me.

The door slammed just shy of smacking into my nose as I tried in vain to follow her. For a moment I feared that she was angry…but Bella didn't get angry with me. That left one option and it was exciting.

"Knock, knock," I called out teasingly, drawing out the words.

"And why should I let you in this time, when you left me high and _very _dry in here yesterday?" I could practically picture her standing naked on the other side of the door with her arms across her chest, pouting dramatically. Bella had always been a horrible actress.

I cleared my throat to stifle the laughter that threatened to come out, which would _not_ help my cause any, playing or not. "Aww, baby, I'm sorry." I pressed my palm to the door even if she could not see it. The words were truer than the silly game we were playing.

"Well, you're lucky the shower head is detachable…that's all I'm saying."

Wait. What?

"Bella?" I ground out her name in something that was a cross between disbelief and amazement. Or perhaps worship. Fuck.

Her giggles filtered through the door in response.

"Well, then apparently I have more than I thought to make up for. Which will be much easier to do if we are both on the same side of the door." I tried to purr out my words for added effectiveness.

"How?" she asked in a quiet, intrigued voice. And I knew that I would be victorious in whatever game it was that we were playing.

"However you like."

"Mmm, as nice as that sounds, I would like some elaboration before I open this door," she pushed.

Damn. She was good at this game. She was naked on her side of the door. I was naked on mine. I palmed my dick and rest my head against the door as I thought. I almost got sidetracked as I stroked myself slowly, but I would much rather it be Bella's hand on me, and so I got back to business. Though, I continued stroking myself as I spoke.

"Are there hooks on the back of the door?" I asked.

"Huh?" Clearly I had caught her slightly off guard.

"Are there?"

"Yes?"

"Are they in the middle of the door, or up at the top?" I shuddered as I spoke, stroking myself and swirling my palm over my swollen head before I glided it back down.

"The top."

"Good, then they won't dig into your back when I slam you against the back of this fucking door that you're so fond of."

"Oh God," she moaned.

"Don't bring God into when I haven't even touched you yet, Isabella," I joked.

"Are you touching yourself?" she asked, completely catching _me _off guard.

"Yes," I wobbled out the word as my hips involuntarily pushed into my palm. "Are you?"

"Yes" she admitted in a quiet voice I barely heard above the sound of the shower she had already turned on but thankfully forgotten about.

We were officially in uncharted territory. We had talked dirty to one another plenty over they years. But somehow the presence of the fucking door between us altered the dynamic into something quite different. Exhilarating.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"What _you_ doing?" she turned it around on me. I understood why. I was more than willing to go first.

"Beating my forehead against this stupid fucking door and stroking myself, desperately wishing it was your warmth around me and not my own cold fucking hand. I get enough of that in New York." Honest.

"Which warm area? I have a few to choose from?" Yeah, she was good at this game.

My eyes rolled back into my head a little as I stroked and contemplated her question thoroughly. "As much as I love your mouth, Bella, I want nothing more than to wrap your legs around my waist, slam you against the door, and bury myself deep inside you. And at this point…I can't even promise to be nice about it."

"Oh God, Edward. Shit." Something hit the door. My guess would be a frustrated little fist.

"Let me in?" I asked. It had a double meaning.

"I would never deny you. Never." I could tell by the panting and wavering voice that she was getting herself quite worked up.

"Isabella? Unless those fingers you have inside yourself are an adequate substitution for my dick, then you need to get the fuck out of the way so I can open this door." My forehead hurt from how hard it was pressed in frustration against the unrelenting wood. "Please," I added for good measure.

The door opened, the steam poured out and blurred my vision momentarily. When I focused my eyes I saw a very hooded gaze looking me up and down where I was leaned against the doorjamb. The broad smile on her face meant that she liked what she saw. My dick was still my hand. It throbbed for her.

Her hand reached out and pushed mine aside, taking its place. She leaned toward me with her other hand curled around the frame of the door and stroked me from base to head,_ swirl, palm_, and then back down again. Her lip was pinched between her teeth and chest heaved with desire. My eyes closed under her touch and I involuntarily leaned forward until my forehead was pressed against hers. She tugged me by my desperate, swollen cock into the bathroom. I kicked the door shut behind me.

"Fuck," she moaned, squeezing her thighs together in search of some relief. Bella rarely swore. Somehow, the word coming out of her mouth made me even harder.

The entire bathroom was so fogged up that we could barely see one another despite being smashed together. Bella's hair was a frizzy, chaotic mess, sticking to her skin in a way that looked uncomfortable though she didn't seem to notice.

My fingers dug into her hips and I switched places with her, true to my word, I was unable to be as gentle as I normally would have liked. Her fingers were still wrapped around my dick, as she began to slide the head back and forth along her entrance. She felt so fucking warm. Sharp things shot from my dick into every limb and corner of my entire body. I tried with everything I had to push into her but she refused to move her hand out of the way.

A cross between a loud moan and a desperate whimper came out of me. She giggled sadistically and sucked my earlobe into her mouth. My fingers were digging so deep into the flesh at her ass that it had to have hurt but I was unable to find the strength to redirect my force elsewhere. My knees almost buckled. I had to force myself to remember that _I _was the one who was supposed to be atoning here, not her.

"Isabella," I groaned, my head falling to the side, allowing her more access to all the kissing and sucking she was doing.

"Yes?" she answered in a breath somewhere near my ear.

"I'm sorry."

"I know," she panted. She understood.

My fingers slid from her hips to her centre. She was warm and dripping wet. She would be ready for me if I made good on my promise and buried myself inside her. Instead, I dropped slowly to my knees.

Bella didn't protest as I ran my palm from her ass to her thigh and gently lifted her leg over my shoulder. Her fingers twisted painfully in my hair. It felt fantastic.

With two fingers inside her, I flattened my tongue over the swollen bundle that throbbed for me. She cried out and dug into my skin harder. In all of forty seconds I could feel her inner walls tightening around my fingers. Under my lashes I looked up and through the steam I could see Bella with her eyes closed, head pressed against the wall, thrashing side to side as she cried out a combination of swear words and my name. I smiled against her flesh and my dick throbbed painfully.

I gently cupped my hand around her foot and lifted it off my shoulder, pressing a string of slow kisses along the inside of her thigh before I settled it back on the floor.

"Jesus Christ, Edward," she panted, still coming down.

I stood and pulled until her hips slid up the dripping door and her feet were lifted off the ground. She wrapped her legs around me and had yet to open her eyes or lift her head. I cradled her face and pushed with the pads of my thumbs above her eyelids so she would open them. They were dark and hungry, but there was a layer of something under the blurry lust that confused me. Sadness?

I pushed into her slowly at first, and then increasingly more rough as she welcomed my need and I took everything she gave. As close as I was the hint of sadness that I saw in her eyes was haunting me and it was all I could focus on. I growled against her sticky flesh and her fingernails dug into the back of my neck. I wanted more.

I dropped her to her feet and stepped over the tiled bathtub and into the shower without a word or looking back at her. I left the curtain pulled open and wet my hair and face under the spray. I tried to ignore my straining dick that swelled and throbbed and threatened to fall off.

When I reopened my eyes I saw the pale, beautiful skin of Bella's back as she sat on the edge of the bathtub with her head in her hands. Her back heaved from everything we had been through in the last hour. The dark strings of her hair snaked around her neck and shoulders and one large piece was twisted kind of tight around the bicep of one arm.

The steam seemed to mute everything that I saw, but it could not lessen the frustration that was so deep inside her, deeper than I could reach with my own body. Frustration that read too much like pain. I had the answer to the question now, I just had to force the words out of my mouth that would describe to her what I saw and felt. Before I even moved a muscle my throat clenched and I felt like I couldn't breathe. There was something tight and sharp both in my chest and in my eyes. My dick pulsed and rioted but I ignored it.

I kneeled in the tub behind her. Her eyes swept over her shoulder to where I was perched but she made no other move.

"Remember that dream you used to have over and over when you were really little, the one about being lost in the meadow behind the old church?" I began, slowly unwinding the string of hair that bound her arm. I continued to toy with the ends of it after I freed her. My voice came in wavers but I didn't have a reason to care that my emotion shone through, overpowering my lust. Bella would never judge me and she would appreciate every once of what she heard. "Remember how you would wake your parents up every night after you had that dream, crying and shaking, and Renée would have to reassure you that it was only a dream. You would plead with them that it was real and that you had been lost for years and that you were just returning until you physically couldn't produce any more tears or words, and they would again, tell you that no, it was all just a dream. A really, really bad dream that felt so real it screwed with your reality, even after you woke up. Do you remember?" I choked on the last sentence.

"Yes," she whispered without moving. My hands were running the length of her body from her hips to her shoulders on both sides as I knelt behind her. I didn't speak again until they grew too tired to carry on. I let them sag limp by my sides and rest my weary forehead against the small of her back. Still, the steam swirled and the hot water fell on me.

"I'm in the pantry at my parent's house. I have those old charcoal-grey dress pants on that I had as a kid, the ones I wore to every dress-up function until there were no more hems to let out and my mother was forced to buy me a new pair. I'm sitting in the very back and the door is closed and the lights are off and my back is pressing against cans of food and they hurt but I don't care. I'm just sitting there by myself, rocking in the dark and staring at the line of light that seeps in from under the doorway.

"The skin on my face feels raw and tight and bloody but I have no idea why. My fingers are wrapped tight around a paperback book of some sort and I'm crying…so hard that I realise that is why my back hurts. As I rock and sob my spine keeps rubbing against the hard edges of the shelf and I realise it is probably bleeding it hurts so goddamn bad, but it is nothing…_nothing_ in fucking comparison.

"A thought occurs to me that there are other injured pieces of me as well but I can't find the will to care enough to investigate. I just keep rocking and clutching to the damn book and staring at the streak of light like it can save me. It makes my feet look black in silhouette as I stare right through them into the light for answers, for hope, for relief. I find nothing. I have nothing. Somewhere in the back of my innocent mind I know that, but acceptance is harder than anything else and I'm fighting it, because the fucking minute that I accept it…I die.

"My feet are cold and bare but I know that it's because my dress shoes are sitting next to me. I don't think I ever bothered with socks. Maybe I forgot about them. I always used to do that as a kid, so it makes sense.

"My head hurts from all the crying but it pales in comparison to the hurt in my chest. The hollow hurt that feels like I've been carved open and had pieces of me removed while I'm awake and watching, unable to stop it from happening. Everything was stolen from me. Everything I need to survive, to be me, to feel good…it's all been carved out of me and it is never coming back. I realise that the distant sound in my ears is my own crying, pleading voice. My own prayers and sobs and wretched curse words that I didn't know I knew. My fist with the paperback keeps beating against the floor and I'm certain I've broken something, but what the fuck does it matter against the heap of everything else that is broken?

"At first, I think it's a memory of the time I hid in the pantry with you during your mother's wake. Do you remember that, too? I hid in there with you and held you and you unleashed everything that had been locked away during the funeral, everything you kept hidden from everyone else. But I was the one crying, not you.

"Then… then I look down at the book I'm holding and realise it's a journal. It's not Renée's. I realise that those aren't the ancient hand-me-down dress-pants from Emmett, but the stupid Gucci ones Alice bought me last year that I think are uncomfortable but that you think look sexy. And I realise that the piece that has been taken from me is _you_."

My words are barely audible by the time I break off into real fits of tears. Bella spins around on the edge of the tub so fast she almost falls backward. She steadies herself on my shoulders as she slides down the edge into the basin with me. She shuffles until she is as close as she can get and wrapped around me in more directions than I can fathom – holding me and kissing me. Her hand wipes at my face first before she realises brushing away tears in the shower is futile, and then she pushes my wet hair back off my forehead and kisses it. She doesn't say anything but her eyes are shining and her lower lip is trembling uncontrollably – it says enough.

"Do you know that your chances of getting breast cancer are doubled? That one in twenty-eight diagnosed women will die from it?" They were horrible things to say to her. Completely inexcusable. Fucking selfish. Of course she knew. She lived through her mother's battle. She lived with the knowledge the doctors repeated to her every year when she went in for her exams and an MRI. But the words were out before I could stop them.

"Yes," she whispered. It was all she said. She continued holding onto me, though I was unsure if it was for her sake or mine.

"I'm sorry," I said with my lips against the shell of her ear, arms clutching her for dear life.

Dear, Life.

"Me too." I wasn't sure exactly what either of us were apologising for.

"I can't lose you, Izzy" I pled. I used to call her that when she was little. I don't know why it came out. But my plea was so real it burned in my soul. People say they can't live without someone all the time, but for me it was true. I physically couldn't. She dies, I die. I could never exist separate from her. I would _never_.

"You won't, Edward. You wont."

Bullshit," I growled in her ear. She pushed me away until she could see my face. "I lose you all the fucking time. Every time I put you on a plane to somewhere that I'm not, I fucking lose you. I lose pieces of myself with you. They're starting to stay gone even when we're together again. It's _actually, literally _killing me to be away from you all the time."

"Oh, Edward, don't you think I…"

"Marry me, Bella?" I was so far gone that words were tumbling out of my mouth before my brain okayed them.

She blinked and gathered her bearings.

"What?" she whispered.

"Marry me. Now. Well…not _now, _now, but you know…now. This summer. We don't even have to tell anyone, I just…I _need_ something real, something that says you're mine and no one else's. I need to tie myself to you before I fucking drown in this, this…whatever-the-fuck, I just can't…" I stammered. The words were crashing together but it wasn't for lack of significance. I meant what I said.

'Edward," Bella cooed with a soft smile, pushing me back further and climbing onto my lap. "I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere, I promise. You can have me. You can have me any way you want me. I'm yours; I always have been, whether we do something drastic right now or not. That doesn't change anything one way or the other."

I sniffed and blinked while her soft lips pressed briefly against mine before she continued.

"But a secret wedding? Edward, that would devastate your mother and Alice and you know it. And there isn't any point. It would just be a piece of paper that says something official for everyone else to understand what it is that we have always known in our hearts. We belong together. Irrevocably. We already know the power of everything that we are and it is so much more than a silly legal document.

"Don't' get me wrong, I _want _that silly legal document someday. But not like this, not because we're afraid. We can figure this out, we just need a plan. I graduate in a few months… I refuse to let you walk away from everything now, but… Okay, I know! I don't need that stupid internship in Arizona. I mean who ever heard of…"

I couldn't take the talking anymore. Her words were fast and jumbled the way she always talks when she was rambling and trying problem solve. My head was throbbing from the tears, my eyes were burning, my back stung after it had been pummelled for so long by the stream of water from the showerhead, and my insides were chaotic…but at least now we both knew why. I also knew that I was tired of words and tears and plans. I just wanted to feel the solid form of her body surrounding mine in every plausible manner. My poor abandoned dick still throbbed in time with my heart and I crushed my mouth to hers in seek of some relief. I pushed until her back hit the edge of the bathtub and she began to push back, returning my renewed fervour.

I never felt more like myself than when I was inside of Bella. That was when I felt like the simplest, purest version of myself. That was when I was at the most peace and when I was confident in our durability.

I was still moving in and out of her, my hands lifting and lowering her ass onto me slowly, groaning against her every time she took me in, when she rest her cheek to my shoulder and whispered something. For something that began heated and desperate, our pace and filtered into something extremely slow, so much so that the burn in my belly had almost nearly retreated, giving way to something else entirely. A cool warmth that fizzled through my limbs and tickled the tips of my ears. It brought soft smiles to our lips and my fingertips danced over every inch of her slippery skin. It was no longer about a climax but rather, about a pairing, a promise, a plan.

I realised the word that Bella was repeating over and over as I moved inside her.

_Wishweed._

I cupped her face and looked deep into the hooded eyes that mirrored every once of need and love and hope that I felt. I questioned her without saying a word.

"I needed to know," she whimpered. "I needed to know so badly what was bothering you, so that I could help fix it. I was beginning to get scared. Even if it hurt…I needed to know. It was what I wished for, what I needed. We can fix this."

* * *

First of all. Thank you to everyone who wished me congratulations and well. Hugs!

Second, thank you for the outpouring of reviews I got on the last chapter. I read every single one of them, though didn't reply to as many as I normally do so that I could edit this bad boy and get it posted.

**And, most important...**

**It is breast cancer awareness month. Cancer, especially breast cancer, is indeed serious business for us women. It has certainly left its hideous scar on my family, and I don't doubt some of yours as well. The more you know, the better. So please, do your loved ones a favour and educate yourself. And if you can, run, walk, skip, gallop, or just donate to a local cause, because this bitch needs a cure. It needs to stop devastating familes everywhere. Thank you.**

**If FFN eats the following links I will have them posted on my profile as well. But they may take up to 24 hrs to validate. Come back and check. Please.**

http:/www. breastcancer. org/

http:/ww5. komen. org/

http:/www. the3day. org/site/PageServer

*pregnant emo sobs*

Thank you!

Air

~xox~


	32. Fixed

Still with me on this?

The updates are a few weeks apart now. Not only is the story winding down...ish...

But also, I am knocked up with a toddler who is going through a, erm, rough (Satanic) patch, so...

Bear with me, yes?

Love me, yes?

Maybe answer that question after you read the update. I bet you say you love me!

*hugs*

Air

~xox~

* * *

_"We can fix this."_

Could we?

Bella said we could. Promised, even.

But how?

Neither of us had any answers beyond the usual fumbling through words, promises, and _I love you_'s. It was all we had to give and it annoyed the fuck out of me. Don't get me wrong, I would happily spend the rest of my life blanketed in _I love you's _from Isabella, but it certainly didn't _fix _our immediate problem.

When we got home from the Woodmark everything was warm and inviting and…slightly awkward. The huge fucking elephant in the room was everyone knowing what kind of holiday we had gone on, but no one outright addressing it, which was beginning to be more troublesome than helpful for my sour state of mind.

Over roast beef and mashed potatoes a few days after we came home, while the entire family sat around my mother's dining room table chatting warmly, I nearly came unhinged yet again. The lack of resolution to Bella's blind declaration was wearing me down, and I was already worn thin before the trip.

The loud clanking of silverware and voices echoed in my head, driving me within an inch of slamming my fist onto the table and shouting, "Yes, I have been fucking Bella for the last six years. Some day we will make it legitimate and shit but for now…can you jerk-off's please stop side-eyeing us all night long to see if we secretly hold hands under the fucking table or something!"

I didn't.

Luckily, Rosalie decided to go into labour, effectively releasing me from my foul mood and elevating the entire family into an excited state of confusion about bags, cars, the most direct routes, and locating a stop watch.

Seventeen hours later, Olivia Rose Cullen graced us with her appearance. My family would never be the same.

It was instantly obvious that the little girl owned all of our asses, including mine. Who knew my goofball brother's big blue eyes could look so beautiful on something that only weighed seven pounds two ounces?

My heart splintered in more ways than it ever had when I climbed onto a plane three weeks later. I found myself scrolling through the eight thousand pictures on my digital camera as soon as the flight attendants ended their safety procedures speech.

Before we even left Seattle airspace I was forcing the poor lady with the soft smile and warm caramel-coloured hair next to me to _ooh_ and _awe_ over the photos while I gushed over Olivia and how enamoured I was. Two hours into the flight and I was unloading my entire soul onto the poor woman about my love affair with Bella, her unanswered declaration, and our location restraints.

She patted my knee and listened intently. She applauded our academic devotion, but more than that, the old-fashioned romance behind our struggle to remain committed to one another despite the challenges. As hard as it had been over the years, I admitted that I would have never dubbed my relationship with Bella as "a struggle." Loving Bella was easy. Leaving her was hard.

By the end of the flight I had learned that she was flying to New York on business for the week and leaving behind three young sons with their father. The honesty shone through easily when she said that if they became even a fraction of how "adorable, honourable, and passionate" she had found me to be, then she would consider herself lucky and be immensely proud of them. I took her compliment in stride and apologised for monopolising her time the entire flight, nodding to the unopened book in her lap with a dog-ear somewhere near the middle. She shrugged and said it was a boring book anyway.

I had no idea what came over me. Normally during the long and gruelling flights to and from one home and the next, I sat in silent pain, rarely even opening my eyes long enough to notice the people beside me. Yet there I was, pouring my heart out in a fast and frantic voice that I barely recognised to a complete stranger. The woman was very understanding. She told me that once a woman becomes a mother, they just put off that vibe, and that she didn't mind my ramblings. She smoothed my chaotic hair off my forehead in a very Esme-esque gesture, and wished me all the luck in the world. I almost hugged her as we disembarked, but at the last minute, jammed my hands into my pockets and settled on thanking her for the umpteenth time.

Over the summer spent in Washington, everyone discussed how wonderful it would be for the entire family to come to New York for Christmas. We excitedly planned things like Rockefeller Center, the tree lighting, Radio City, and the ballet. Of course, Bella still wanted to go ice-skating, and naturally, Alice was bouncing in her seat just imagining the shopping to be had.

Unfortunately, when the time came, the reality of travelling with a new baby discouraged my brother and Rosalie, and no one else wanted to be anywhere that Olivia was not for her first Christmas. I couldn't blame them. However, it took every ounce of will and reserve of manly pride not to cry on the phone when my mother called and delicately broke the news. Christmas in New York just wasn't practical this year.

I had already purchased more little red dresses and toys than I could count. They were wrapped and stacked in a corner in my bedroom with shiny red paper and white satin ribbons.

I was devastated. I couldn't focus. I bought an impromptu plane ticket Christmas Eve night. I paid an exorbitant fee, but knew that every dime was well spent, and surprised everyone who had already made peace with the fact that my thesis work was going to keep me on the east coast.

Bella was there. Olivia was sitting up all by herself. However, that may have been more due to the ridiculously frilly red tutu she was wearing that held her wobbly little body up, and less her own skill. I was proud regardless and took a hundred pictures.

Christmas night, I cuddled with her on the couch beside the fire and read a book about _A Kitten's First Christmas._ She sucked on my pinky finger the whole time and drooled on the pages, but Rosalie insisted that she looked interested and liked the sound of my voice by the way she stared happily at me.

My heart bled. It warmed me. My arms held Bella every night I was home. That warmed me even deeper.

I love my family.

Bella and I spent Valentine's night on the phone with one another watching _A Philadelphia Story _and eating Oreo's "together". I had sent her a dozen red roses with white spray filler and a box of those vile candy hearts in keeping with our "cheesy" tradition. Bella emailed me list of dirty things she was going to do to me the next time she saw me, claiming that was cheesy as well. It may have been a little cheesy, but I saved the list to my hard drive and fully intended to collect on each item.

Despite it being crunch time to finalize my second academic year-end documents to be submitted for approval to my thesis advisor, I again found myself on an airplane early one Tuesday morning. Thursday, the tenth of May, 2007 was Bella's ASU commencement. I wouldn't miss it for the world. In so many ways…it _was_ my world.

The entire family was coming to Arizona to proudly cheer Bella on and whoop and holler embarrassingly as she took her diploma and donned her burgundy robe and cap. We bought extra tickets off a university sponsored website from students with extra seats just so that we could all be there. I couldn't be more proud.

My little sun devil.

My flight was set to arrive a day before everyone else. Bella was planning to meet me at the airport. As I followed the parade of people being funnelled through the gates and out of the secured terminals, I scanned the crowd for her excitedly. At first glance, I couldn't see her, but before I could turn around to search better, a very giggly little thing jumped on my back and nearly knocked me onto my knees. I dropped my bag instantly as my heart raced. Her legs wrapped around my waist and her lips were already at my neck. I could smell the sugary sweetness that was so familiar as it surrounded me.

So, _so _happy.

"Man, I need to visit Arizona more often. This state has such a great welcoming committee," I mumbled playfully to myself while Bella giggled in my ear. She slid down my back to her feet, but kept her hands on my shoulders.

Nine months. In the last nine months I had seen Bella once for three days over Christmas. It was too big of a travesty that I couldn't even put it into words. We had planned to see one another more than that, but Bella was coming up short of commencement credits by three, so she had to add a side project that she was authorized through the university to receive five credits for with an on-line journal or something, in addition to her internship. I was knee-deep in psychology studies and research for my thesis and barely able to come up for air long enough to eat or talk to her for twenty minutes on the telephone. When I closed my eyes at night I dreamt of two things: Bella and medical psychology studies. Our schedules were only getting more and more hectic and it was starting to create nothing short of a panic inside me that we still had years of this shit ahead of us.

I could feel our physical connection slipping through my fingers. We had been careless enough to allow that to happen once – we would never make that mistake a second time. When it came to my heart and my sanity, I was a fast learner. Something was going to have to give to make good on Bella's promise to _fix _us, and I was hell-bent to have that discussion at some point over the next five days. Maintaining the status quo just wasn't an option any longer.

But first…

"I agree. You _should_ come to Arizona more often. Jackass."

Bella removed her hands from my shoulders and punched me lightly as I spun around to properly greet her. I returned her kisses with such vigour that her little feet lifted off the ground. However, much sooner than I had planned on tearing my lips from hers, she pulled away and crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. She even stamped her foot as she cocked an eyebrow at me.

_Fuck, I love her. _

Her eyes sparkled and belied her faux-sternness as she scowled in front of me. I couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing. I was just so goddamn giddy to see her in front of me and in the flesh.

"Alight. I promise to spend the next five days making it up to you." I lowered my voice and narrowed my eyes. "_Repeatedly. _Starting tonight," I purred, winking at her and smoothing out her hair, pushing it off her shoulders. It felt so fucking amazing against my fingers.

I cupped her face and pulled her mouth to mine again. Our lips opened as soon as they made contact, eager to get as close as possible, as fast as possible. Before I knew it, she was holding herself upright with her arms around my neck as her knees threatened to give way.

We both had to come up for air at the same time. Ignoring the eyes of the flood of people around us, we dove back in for round two. My fingers slid under her blanket of hair, tangling in its length while my thumbs pressed into the base of her skull. I held her as close to me as she could get in a crowded airport with all of our clothes inconveniently still in place.

"Start now," she whispered as she pulled back, panting. Her lips were red and puffy and her eyes were hooded.

"Now?" My eyes widened salaciously as I looked around us.

"Yup, now. You can start by hailing us a cab, mister big-city New York boy, because I suck at it." She scrunched her nose up and nodded for added emphasis.

I looked her up and down several times before replying. She had on faded denim shorts with a tear on the thigh near the pocket and the shredded hems flipped up. They made her skinny, bare legs look miles long. She also had an orange tee shirt with a Black logo that I instantly recognised. The poor shirt was so weathered it was paper thin, and the once vibrant orange was now a pale peach. It clung to her curves in a dangerous way that I was sure the manufactures never intended. It said CULLEN on the back and was my old Sequim Little League tee shirt from when I was nine. I had no idea how she had gotten her hands on it, but it looked incredibly sexy on her. Her white plastic sunglasses were pushed up on her head and her hair was its usual wavy, wild mess. Somehow, in something so simple, she was incredibly sexy.

"Somehow, Isabella, I highly doubt that you would have any difficulty flagging down a cab." I narrowed my eyes at her and watched as she bit her lip and her telltale pink blush crept across her cheeks. She pretended to be offended but her smile gave her away. I swatted her ass and scooped up my bag. "Besides, they have cab carrels out front, no hailing required." I winked at her and threw my free arm around her shoulders.

She hummed and nodded in acquiescence and melted into my side comfortably. I kissed the top of her head and inhaled her scent again. Warmth flooded through my every fibre, bringing me home.

In the cab back to her townhouse, Bella never even bothered buckling her seatbelt. She sat astride me with her fingers tugging at my hair and her mouth plastered to mine. My fingers found the silken skin that exposed itself as _her_ tee shirt rode above the very low rise of her shorts. I kneaded the flesh in my palms greedily and rocked her over me, groaning against her lips.

Occasionally, I would open my eyes and glance over her shoulder to the cabbie's eyes that were visible in the rear view mirror. He had ear buds in his ears and some sort of soccer game being broadcast in Spanish, blasting so loudly that every play was audible from the back seat. He paid us no mind despite the plethora laws we were breaking.

I paid the man, who may have been paying closer attention to us than I realised given the disgusting smirk on his face as I handed him the money. Then, I followed Bella up the walkway to her place.

While the rest of the troops were booked to stay a few miles away at the Hyatt once they arrived, I fully intended on spending the nights at Bella's. Preferably naked and tangled in her limbs with her hair tickling my nose and her fingertips against my abs, but I would leave those detail out of the announcement when the time came.

I hooked my finger through the back belt loop on the tattered denim shorts as Bella dug for the house key in her front pockets. I pulled her against me and dipped my head to the side to tug playfully at her earlobe with my teeth. She growled as she came up short for the keys. I shook my head, chuckling under my breath, wondering if she was ever going to learn her lesson about house keys.

"Shut up, Cullen."

I sucked and then placed a soft kiss at her lobe, silently making amends for biting it a moment prior. Bella's body relaxed against mine and she gave up the battle with the front door. A wide smile spread across my face. I really missed her.

The door swung open. Her roommate rolled her eyes and stepped back, allowing us through with a grand arm gesture.

"Don't worry," she sing-songed, "leaving now." She skipped out the door as soon as we entered, offering me a giggly greeting as she passed.

The white board above couch had huge block letters scrawling out a message in burgundy, Sun Devil ink. It read, "Congratulations Bella, the best truly is yet to come…now" with a heart and a winky face punctuating the end.

"Why are you the only one being congratulated here?" I asked, nodding toward the board, knowing that her roommate would also be receiving her degree on Thursday.

"Oh, I don't know, she's just sweet like that I guess," Bella murmured, her eyes fluttering quickly between the board and her own feet. "C'mon, let's get your stuff upstairs."

I stood at the foot of the stairs a couple seconds longer than I needed to, absorbing the way she averted my eyes as she mumbled out an explanation and blushed. She was a terrible liar, especially to _me._ There was something more to it, but I realised we had the place to ourselves and that she was leading me to her bedroom. I quickly stowed my thoughts and chased after her.

I tackled her to her bed, pinning her face first beneath me as I came running up behind. She squealed and wiggled but didn't fight hard enough to actually free herself. She didn't want to be freed. She was more than willing to be conquered.

With my knees on the outside of hers and my palms pressed against the mattress beside her ears, I lowered myself down to kiss her. My front ran flush with her backside.

"I missed you more than I could ever put into words, Bella." My lips found the shell of her ear, the sweet spot behind it, the line of her neck, and then the dip where it met her shoulder. My tongue lapped everywhere my lips touched, and my hips shifted automatically as I played with her, pressing me harder against her body.

Her head lolled to the side, her eyes were closed, and she moaned in delight at the feel of my lips on her skin and my heat mixing with hers. I knew precisely how she felt. It was something akin to elation and relief. Something warm and yet splintery. An excited calm.

Bella squirmed until she successfully flipped herself over to face me. Her rioting beneath me rubbed her ass against my erection in an altogether enjoyable way. Once she was finally on her back, I repositioned my legs inside hers and her ankles crossed over the backs of my calves. I was otherwise still laying flat against her, but at least in that position I could see her beautiful face. And her eyes. Things that I missed so much in their pronounced absence.

"Hi," I purred, my nose brushing hers.

"Hi." She giggled. "I really missed you too," she returned my sentiment from when I first pinned her to the bed over thirty minutes before.

Her eyes closed and she sighed the most content sound that soothed everything inside me. A lazy little smile painted her lips and I took in every inch of her face and her beauty. Her long dark lashes, the delicate arch in her brow, the pale pink of her lips, the three freckles on her nose that were more pronounced in the Arizona sun than back home underneath the murk. My eyes were too close and slightly crossed as I smiled upon her. The sun created a red halo in her natural highlights atop her head as it shone through the opened blinds beside her bed. After what felt like ages in silent appreciation, I lowered my lips to hers.

_Home_ was so relative.

My eyes were only partially closed, causing the creamy pales and pinks of her skin to blur with the yellow sun in a haze of perfection, as our lips moved together in a slow, easy rhythm that was so familiar and so cherished. We both knew what we were slowly working towards, but the end was not the goal. The love shared along the way was the purpose. Holding her against me, hearing the little sounds that seeped out of her, and feeling her fingers at my neck and in my hair, that was the good part. I revelled in the tingly sensations that rippled through me and into her and back again as we rolled around on the bed enjoying one another's company. And the way that, at times, my lips only grazed hers in something that was so faint, so soft, just a whisper, that it could hardly be classified as a kiss. We held tight to those brief moments we took to collect our breath and whisper words of love. They were everything.

We didn't bother to get under the covers, never mind the fact that it was over a hundred degrees outside, Bella and I had never felt the need to blanket ourselves from one another. We made love slowly. We took pride in our connection. We took our time and enjoyed every movement of our joined bodies – the significance, the depth, the emotion. It had been to many months since I held her in my arms, naked and sticky and panting against me, with my name dripping from her lips and her legs wrapped around mine. Too damn long. I wanted to cherish every second to the same degree that I cherished her very existence.

Every time our lovemaking threatened to push me over the edge, I backed off, rolled around, sat up, or held still long enough to ease the burn so that we could continue. When I finally surrendered to the heated coil in my belly it was only because my back was pressed against the wall while Bella sat straddling me, scratching her fingers through my sweaty hair and pinning me in place. Her lips sucked just above my collar bone and her thighs clamped down on my hips as she sailed through her own climax and spurred on my own. My arms were wrapped entirely around her bare back, pulling her into me as I shuddered and swore in her ear and then let my heavy head crash against her shoulder.

My eyes were too heavy to open and Bella was limp on top of me, mewling and tracing shapes on my chest with her fingernails. I felt her warm cheek against my ear.

The room had grown pink as the sun travelled through the sky and neared the end of the day. Still, I held onto Bella as she held onto me. I could have easily drifted off into a warm, pleasant oblivion without ever moving if she had let me.

"Hey?" she whispered after what was either a minute or three days spent in sated bliss.

"Hmm?"

"Maybe we should go somewhere for dinner or something. You know…just you and me before everyone gets into town tomorrow."

It was a sound idea…except for the fact that I was jelly and exhausted. I cracked open one eye and peered sideways at her. She pushed off my chest and sat back on her heels and looked at me with such big, blinking, brown eyes that I pushed aside my fatigue and nodded with a smile on my face.

Wanting something close and low-key, we threw on jeans and tee shirts and walked the few blocks to the Whatburger just off campus. The sky was a smear of dusky pinks and blues and the air was warm. There was a palpable buzz all around us given the end of the school year. Parties, shouts, loud music, and whistles could be heard from every direction as people unwound everywhere from the on-campus housing halls to the fields beside the Irish pub we walked by.

The diner was quiet compared to outdoors. Bella was slower at getting her fountain drink than I was, and when she came over to the booth were I sat, she seated herself on the opposite side of the table. It was odd. We always sat together like the disgustingly sweet couple that we truly were. It reminded me of my earlier suspicions.

She dropped her book bag loudly at the side of the booth and began twisting the paper off of her straw without meeting my eyes. I eyed her book bag and wondered why she had even brought it.

"I'm telling you, you should have got the onion rings and not that stupid salad. You'll regret that decision and I refuse to share just to spite you," she threatened as she bit into a large onion ring and hummed in pleasure. I couldn't help but snicker at her dramatics. I stole one for myself, cocking an arrogant brow at her when she opened her mouth to protest.

"So," I began, swallowing the onion ring that admittedly was like a grease ball sent from Heaven in my mouth, "how'd you get your hands on this anyway?" I reached across the table and fingered the hem on the short sleeve of my old Little League shirt.

"Uhm…" She grabbed three huge onion rings and laid them on my tray as a peace offering.

My eyes widened comically and I refused the bribe. I kept them on my tray anyway. "No you don't. How'd you manage to get this shirt in your possession you little thief. It's like twenty years old and I'm pretty sure my mother was saving it."

She scowled but answered begrudgingly. "Fine. So I was home one Christmas a few years ago when you weren't…"

I knew which year she meant. The _dark_ year.

"…and I missed you but was too stubborn and proud to admit it yet, so I went up into the attic one day to look for that old photo frame you always had in your bedroom. You know, the one with all the mashed up pics of us glued into a collage with no rhyme or reason?"

Of course I knew the frame. It sat on my bedside table in New York. And before I had a table there, it sat on the floor. And before that it was on top of a pile of boxes in my bedroom closet where I would randomly open the stupid metal door just to look at it longingly as my proud, broken heart bled, then slam the door shut again – which might explain why it is so rickety and falls of the tracks easily now.

"So I didn't find that frame, but I found this instead. I took it back to my dad's house and washed it and wore it to bed that night. I liked that it had your name on it. And every time I looked at it I pictured your Little League picture from that year, the one with the missing front teeth and the crazy hair and the dirt smudge on your chin. It made me smile. Not a lot made me smile back then…"

"That frame has never left my side," I croaked out in a voice hoarse with emotion.

Bella's misty eyes shined as they crinkled against her sudden smile. "Well I know that _now,_ thank you very much. But I didn't figure you had it with you at the time."

"Always," was all I answered her with. She knew what I meant.

By the time that we finished our meals and were casually chatting and sipping our pops, I had grown more than a little suspicious about Bella's behaviour. Her leg shook, she bit at her lip, and she kept looking down and to the left in that pensive sort of way that she had of doing when she was trying to figure something out. I studied her in silence. She had been more than patient with me over the years every time I took my sweet ass time trying to wrap my overactive mind around an idea, it was the least I could do to return the favour.

Her feet came up to the edge of my bench and she rested her toes in between my legs. I knew what she was doing, but I ignored her obvious attempt at stilling her nervous leg, which she knew was a dead giveaway. She knew by the sharp look I shot her with that I could tell there was something on her mind. Her eyes narrowed on mine accusingly while mine widened in feigned innocence as I shrugged.

"What? I haven't said a thing?" I protested, taking a sip of my iced tea.

"Oh, you don't have to," she spat back a little petulant and a lot cute.

"Well…neither do you." I winked at her but was definitely curious.

"Okay. I guess, if I don't have to say anything…" she joked with me, nudging the inside of my knee with her foot.

I glowered at her in response.

"Oh alright. Dammit. I wasn't going to say anything until later into the trip when everyone was here. I kind of thought it would be funny to just see your reaction in front of everyone as I announce it. But now that you're here… I'm thinking that's a stupid idea and now I'm all anxious and you know how badly I handle being anxious…"

"Isabella. Breathe before your head explodes," I laughed

She sighed and grabbed her bag off the floor.

_I knew there was a reason she brought that._

I eyed her half amused and half nervous as she pulled a large envelope from the bag. This one was white and thick and the top had been ripped off of it, but it was a little too similar for comfort.

"Seriously, another envelope, Bella," I gaped at her.

She smiled and apologised. "It's just the way it came to me." She was quiet for a while, keeping her palm on the package as it sat between us on the table and she chewed her lip in thought. Our eyes were glued together. I couldn't quite place all the emotions that I saw running behind hers. Excitement was the most obvious. Nerves. Hope. But something else, something a little trickier to define. Apprehension?

As much as it killed me, I gave her all the quiet time that she needed. The lighter emotions that were so easily distinguishable on her face comforted me while I waited.

"Okay, just…I don't…" She interrupted herself with a heavy sigh and shoved the envelope closer to me. "I don't know how to even approach this, it's such a long story."

"The beginning is always ideal." I smiled, hoping to relax her. My hands reached under the table and found her ankle. I slipped my fingers around it while my thumb pressed soft little circles near her ankle bone.

"Okay," she began again. Deep breath. Both of us. "So you know how I was doing that job for that website so I could get the credits I need to receive my degree on Thursday?" I nodded. "Well, it was for a dot com where the project manager has some connection with the university, so he often volunteers mini aspects of the ventures he's working on to sub-contracted ASU journalism or IT majors who need a few credits from a special project like that. I was just doing some basic script writing stuff, nothing too exciting…"

She was beginning to lose me in the rambling. I raised my eyebrows and cleared my throat and thankfully she got the hint.

"So anyway, through emails with the PM, whose name is Gary by the way, I began explaining a little about myself and what my journalism goals were after ASU and that sort of thing. Gary asked about where I was currently interning and I told him all about The Central and I joked that I had actually submitted a general employment application to Tribune a year ago hoping to luck out and work for the largest media conglomerate in the US. Did I mention that Tribune owns this particular dot com?" I shook my head. "Oh. Well they do, because you know, they own pretty much half of the countries media outlets. Anyway, so I joked with Gary about that and…"

She paused to gather her breath so she could resume. I was beginning to get quite antsy sitting there listening to her slowly build toward the climax. My overactive mind was already splintering off in a hundred and one different avenues. Some too great to even hope for...

She reached over and snagged the envelope back from my side of the table where it was sitting untouched as she fumbled through her story. As she rifled through it looking for the document she needed, I realised that it was now _my _leg that was bouncing nervously.

She slid a piece of paper from the package and looked up at me from under her lashes with huge brown eyes. They were definately excited. She spun around the paper so that I could see it and held it tight between the fingers and thumb of both hands. It was an email.

**From:** Gary Weitman  
**Subject:** Still Interested?  
**Date:** April 30, 12:27pm  
**To:** Bella Swan

Ms. Swan,

I have been impressed with both your capabilities and professionalism during the course of our working together. It is my delight to inform you, given your aforementioned interest in working with the Tribune Corporation, that we have a couple of year long fellowships that will be opening up in the first week of September 2007. They are similar in practice to the unpaid internship which you described that you are currently involved in. The first is in Los Angeles, California working for the LA Times. The second is in Baltimore, Maryland working for the Baltimore Sun. Both are three days per week, unpaid, sponsored fellowships.

Upon your mention regarding your previous application, I had it retrieved from our archives and looked over it myself. I am certain you would be an excellent placement in either of those fellowships. If you are interested, please notify me as soon as possible so I can make the necessary arrangements.

Gary Weitman, SVP/Corporate Relations

Her hands were shaking by the time I finished reading and the paper was wavering. My leg was still. My heart was pounding. I looked up to see the email being held over her chin and her mouth spread into the hugest fucking smile I had ever seen on my adorable, beautiful, saintly, _fucking godsend_ girlfriend's face.

She was moving to Baltimore. That was her news.

The east coast.

Near me.

Me.

_Us._

She drew her lips between her teeth and pressed them together as she anxiously awaited my response. I was frozen outwardly, but inwardly I was doing every fucking dance and jig I could think of. I was touch-down dancing and doing back-flips. It was just that words…I couldn't get anything to work. It was all flying around too fast in my brain.

"You're moving…?" I sputtered out, a hard blink trying to focus my runaway train of euphoric thoughts.

Beneath her drawn lips was a smile. She nodded.

"To Baltimore?" I swallowed hard, almost afraid that saying it out loud would rescind the offer.

She nodded and her eyes filled with both tears and relief.

"As in…like…five hours from me?" I choked on the words. My face was still expressionless but she knew where I was going with the information and what exactly I was feeling…she was feeling it too.

"Actually, as in three hours and thirty seven minutes from you, you know, if one were to Map Quest that sort of thing." Her sweet smile stretched across her entire face, lighting it up from both the inside and the outside.

Before I realised I was moving, I was lunging across the stupid Formica tabletop that was in my way, keeping me from the only thing that had ever really anchored me to my own life. A full cup of coke may have gone flying and spilling all across the linoleum as my knees climbed up onto the table and my palms wrapped around her head. My knee was in my leftover salad and I couldn't have been happier about it. I drew her up to me for the most energetic kiss I had ever offered her.

Three hours and thirty seven minutes.

She turned down the offer to stay in Arizona even though it was a paid job and infinitely easier on her financially. The LA Times would have been a more logical stepping stone. But she was moving to Baltimore.

Bella fixed us.

We were fixed.

* * *

*sings*

Tolja so!

Air


	33. Perfection

*digs toe*

Uhm...hi.

*covers face*

Sorry for the delay. It was entirely unintentional. Let's pretend this didn't happen, mmmkay?

Glad we're in agreement.

Congrats to the winners in The Twi Network's Re-Write Twi Contest which I had the pleasure of guest judging.

You should check them out. www. twinetwork. blogspot. com

Now... Where were we...?

~xox~

* * *

Bella's things were still happily situated in her townhouse in Arizona. They were going to stay that way for several more months. I, for one, could not wait to fly to Phoenix, march into her cheerful little apartment, and rip everything violently from it as if it were the possessions that had held us apart for so long and not our own immature, poor planning. I was fine with taking out my combination of relief and aggression on inanimate objects. At least I was moving Bella in with me. Finally.

Well…okay. _Technically_ she was moving to Baltimore. But in my overly ecstatic mind, it was basically the same thing. What were a few hours when an entire country had separated us before? It may as well have been opposite ends of the world for as infrequently as we were seeing one another and as far apart as we felt. Baltimore was like my fucking backyard.

Happy didn't even begin to describe what hummed through me, sparking to the tips of my fingers and the ends of my hair follicles. I beamed. I skipped. I laughed at fucking everything. Because in two months time, when the summer withered away to nothing, the slightly-warm-and-sometimes-dry weather slipped through our fingertips, and the leaves turned colours… When malls began advertising _back-to-school_ sales and teenagers glowered down the aisles of supermarkets containing number two pencils and three-ring binders… For once, for fucking _once,_ I wasn't going to be getting on some god-forsaken plane alone. I was going to have Bella beside me. And in fact, there was barely going to be a plane involved.

Bella's roommate had to stay in Tempe until the middle of July to finish out a project she had been working on. After that, she was moving back home to Utah. It made more sense financially for the girls to extend their twelve-month lease by sixty days, rather than for Bella to find and pay for storage, while her roommate scrambled for a place to stay.

At the end of July, Bella and I planned to fly to Arizona, load up her things into a U-Haul and drive to New York. My roommate's father had a storage locker that belonged to an apartment he sublet in Massapequa that was only half full. He graciously volunteered to allow Bella to store her stuff there for a few weeks while we found her a place to live in Maryland.

You know. Maryland. As in, one state below New York. A three hour drive from the city. A two and a half hour train ride from Penn Station to Penn Station. A...

"You look like the cat that ate the canary these days, kid," a familiar voice pushed gently through my reverie as I leaned against the granite countertops in my parent's kitchen. I had entirely forgotten about the jug of orange juice in my hand and the empty glass on the counter. "Also, stop wasting energy and money unless you plan on chipping in on this month's electric bill."

My father softly kicked the door of the refrigerator closed beside me and shook his head, muttering something else that I didn't quite catch. Sunlight flooded through the large bay window from the dining room, bathing the entire room in a shade of yellow vibrancy that _almost_ mirrored the glow emanating from me.

My father removed the jug of orange juice from my hand. He slowly filled my abandoned glass, drained half of it, refilled it, and then handed it back to me and returned the jug to the refrigerator. He promptly closed the door, shooting me a sharp look as he did. I smiled even wider.

"So, does this grin have anything to do with Baltimore?" he hedged, leaning opposite me against the sinks, crossing his feet at his ankles and his arms across his chest. The pale blue cuffs of his button-down shirt were rolled and shoved up his forearms. He had on jeans and loafers. My father rarely wore shorts, that was just the kind of old-school gentleman that he was. His smile made the skin around his eyes crinkle in more dramatic ways than they used to. It somehow didn't make him look older though, just, wiser…and warmer. It was very much my father.

He had been working so much since I arrived home the week before that I had barely said three words to him. I decided to come home for the summer after handing in my final thesis work for my quasi-Masters credits, which brought me two years closer to the doctorate I was aiming for complements of the accelerated program Columbia offered. It was one of the main reasons I chose the university in the first place.

I originally planned to stay in New York over the summer and throwing myself into my dissertation research, eager to get a jump on it. I wanted to finish as fast as humanly possible to maximize my research funding and extra stipends from the University, which, sadly, would have to be my sole living expenses over the next several years. Well, that, _and _I obviously had my own personal incentives to hurry up and get my schooling bullshit over with so I could get on with me real life–my life with Bella.

However, discovering Bella was moving to the east coast altered my summer plans. The library–dark, lonely, musty–offered nothing in comparison to spending time with Bella and helping her move. Nothing could really beat that, in fact. So, I happily rearranged some things so that I could spend June and July home with everyone, help Bella get situated, and then spend any remaining summer break with her on the east coast until my pertinent coursework began in the fall.

I vowed to focus my attention on my dissertation afterward. I had a timeline in my mind that I had been adamantly sticking to since I began my studies at Columbia. I was on track and nearing the end, even if my advisors had been telling me it was an unrealistic timeline right from the beginning. I enjoyed slowly proving them wrong. I was stubborn like that. And I had more faith in my academic capabilities than they did. I knew I could do it.

"Alright then," my father slapped my shoulder playfully, jostling my thoughts and refocusing my eyes once again, "good talk." He chuckled and began to drift toward the living room. Apparently, he had still been speaking while my mind wandered over thoughts of Tempe, Bella, road trips, apartments, and libraries. Oops.

"Sorry, dad. My head is kind of a mess lately. A happy mess, ya know? There's just so much planning and…"

"…and excitement," he hurried to finish my sentence for me with a knowing look, complete with his expertly arched brow.

He always gave me that look when I was a headstrong, precocious boy with mud on my jeans and hair standing on end, begging him to explain concepts that were not quite age-appropriate, or accidently breaking things while trying to "understand" them. It was that familiar look that led me to master the eyebrow muscle myself so I could one day throw it back at him. He used to laugh at me when I was still a little boy and tried failingly to give him _the look_. There are photographs in my mother's albums of me trying. I look more like a sad Bells Palsy victim in a baseball cap than a mischievous inquisitor.

I laughed. "Yeah, lots of excitement." I remembered that I was thirsty and began sipping my juice, my eyes blurring together into the orange liquid as I tilted the glass in front of them.

"Well, clearly you are on a different planet right now," Dad joked, placing his palm against the swing door to the living room. "Maybe come by the hospital tomorrow for lunch and we can have a _real _chat then. Nothing like lukewarm, meatless, lasagne-like substance and chunky, burnt coffee to squelch some excitement long enough to have a proper conversation."

I nodded as he continued through the door, shaking his head with a wide grin on his face. There was nothing my parents took more enjoyment from than seeing their children genuinely happy. I already knew that. And there was a roll of warm, promising happiness beginning to brew somewhere deep in my belly. I knew it was only just the beginning and that someday soon the extent of it would be truly realised. But for now I revelled in the first stirrings of it.

I placed my empty glass in the sink. I ran some water in it so my mother wouldn't be irritated with me, and followed my father through the door.

Olivia held the rapt attention of each person in the living room as she balanced herself on chubby, wobbly little legs at the edge of the coffee table. She walked herself along the edge to Rosalie's knees where she sat on the couch clapping encouragingly at her daughter. Olivia's bare feet made gentle padding noises against the hardwood that melted my heart.

She bravely let go of the table only to plop directly onto her bottom, her little green and white polka dotted dress flaring out around her. She squealed in delight and reached for Rosalie so she could right herself and try it again.

"Oh, she is _so _close, Rose!" my mother squeaked, her hands clasped in front of her as she kneeled on the floor beside them. She absolutely _adored_ being a grandmother. And if she excelled at motherhood, she was absolutely incomparable as a grandmother.

My father stopped as he passed through the room, pat my mother's shoulder affectionately, smiled at Rosalie, and kissed the top of Olivia's head. He called her his "little angel" and then took the stairs to his study slowly, leaning over the banister to watch as Olivia dropped onto her bottom again.

"Another couple of weeks, darling, and she will be running all over the place, mark my words," my mother said, initially addressing my sister-in-law, but then changing her voice to the soft, baby-talk coo that had become commonplace around the house as she finished her thoughts. "Once they figure it out they are impossible to stop. Yes they are." Her fingers expertly poked at the chubby little things sides and Olivia squealed a loud, belly-laugh. It was the kind where you couldn't help but smile in return.

I hadn't realised that I was just leaning against the doorjamb staring, but I wasn't surprised when I blinked and snapped out of it. I made my way over to the girls and reached for Olivia. Just as I snatched her from my mother's hands her sticky little fingers swiped at the Parenting magazine that lay across Rosalie's knees, knocking it to the side.

"Hey, mommy was reading that you little cretin," Rosalie joked, tickling her foot as I lifted her away from them.

I nuzzled my face into Olivia's precious little belly and inhaled that baby smell that I still had no idea what it was, but it was so sweet and adorable. I pretended to nibble on her fingers just to get that giggle that I loved. When I was done snacking, I glanced over Rosalie's shoulder to the page that lay open on her lap, just as she was twisting to better face my mother. She turned the magazine around to display the page for her.

"Look, a complete chart on the best lubes the industry has to offer," she announced, sounding half serious and half in jest. "Let's see what people have to say about them."

My brows knit together in both confusion and dismay. Much to my added horror, my mother did not blush, but rather leaned over and "hummed" as she scanned the chart. "Oh, I hate that one," she murmured to Rose, her red-painted fingernail touching the glossy page, pointing to a purple and white bottle.

"Oh my god, right? Rosalie concurred. "So sticky. Not cool."

A shudder rocked through me from shoulder to foot and then fucking back again. I had to hand Olivia back to my mother just to make sure I didn't drop her on her head out of sheer terror.

"What the f–," I stopped myself, glancing to the bouncing little thing in my mother's lap. She continued to study the chart, oblivious to her favourite sons growing discomfort. "_Why _is there a write-up about personal lubricant in your _Parenting_ magazine?" My voice trembled, I was clearly disturbed and neither of them had spared me as much as a glance until then.

There must have been something especially appalling in my tone, because both pairs of eyes snapped over their shoulders to gape at me, narrowing in offense. Rose was the first to speak.

"Oh what, once you procreate you aren't allowed to have sex recreationally anymore?" she scoffed.

"Uhh…no?" I said, obviously knowing that not only was I wrong, but that I was flaming their fires with my indignant response as well. But, seriously, they had to see my point.

They looked at each other, rolled their eyes, and then went back to their hushed discussion. I leaned back in over the couch, placing my hands on the top and hovering over Rosalie's shoulder.

There were over a dozen brands of lube on the char –all of which had a column for price, product base, and overall user-rating out of five stars. There were also little balloons shooting off to the side of the chart with user comments such as, "My husband finds the cherry scent of this one distracting in the moment."

"Seriously, who the hell buys this shit any way?" I muttered, not really intending either of them to notice me or care what I had to say after I had clearly embarrassed and offended them. Not that they were paying me any mind as it was.

I was about to reach for my little girl again to steal her away from the corrupting ideas in a magazine that, in my opinion, should have articles about teething treatments and homemade baby food recipes, and _not _sex and Gun Oil.

Rosalie leaned back and looked up at me. "What are you talking about, Edward?" Her voice was tight.

"Huh?" I looked from the graph to her face, which was inches from mine and twisted into a look of serious annoyance. She read my confusion and her interest was beyond piqued.

She dumped the magazine onto the tabletop with a loud slap. Olivia bat at it happily as Rosalie spun around to sit on the edge of the coffee table and glower at me. I could see my mother's gaze slide over to me out of the corner of her eye. I regretted even entering the room.

"You've honestly never used a lube before? Like…ever?" Rosalie demanded, oblivious to my discomfort.

"Uh…" My eyes darted anxiously between her and my mother and back again, my cheeks growing very warm.

My mother returned her attention to the baby and, without looking back at us, waved her hand in the air removing herself from the conversation. But the damage was done. My mother did _not _like Astroglide. I was ruined forever knowing that.

"No." I answered Rosalie plainly, eyes still on my mother, hoping she was genuinely ignoring me. Not that I didn't assume _she_ had assumed that my virginal ship had sailed ages ago. But still...she was my _mom_. I didn't want to discuss the details of my sex life in front of her.

"Give me a break. Who _hasn't_ used lube at some point?" Rosalie sneered. Was it my imagination, or was she getting defensive?

My eyes widened in agitation as they finally pulled from my mother, who did appear to be ignoring us as she peered over Olivia's shoulder at the askew magazine on the table. I had to shake my head to clear away everything unpleasant that I had learned in the last forty-five seconds before I could stumble out an awkward response to a very contemptuous looking Rosalie. She was clearly waiting for my answer to her question.

"Uhm…me?" I wasn't sure why the statement came out as a question. I honestly had no experience with the stuff. Apparently that was a good thing, considering that, aside from maybe one product, none of them appeared to score anything higher than two and a half stars. Clearly, I was not missing out on anything.

"Bullshit," Rose muttered, rolling her eyes and shifting herself back into the couch away from me. It was a dismissive action if ever there was one, but for some reason her attitude, which was typical and I _should _have been used to it, was really getting under my skin. Perhaps I just had too much on my mind, but she was pissing me off.

"Swear to god. I've never touched the stuff," I confessed, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I could filter them.

Rosalie turned back around and pulled one leg up onto the couch to tuck her ankle under her thigh. "How is that even humanly possible, Edward?"

_Why didn't I walk away with the baby when I had the chance?_

Or shut my stupid mouth. Or both. Bella and I had just bought Olivia some new toys and things that were sitting up in my room unopened. I should have taken her up there to play with them and left the women alone downstairs to muse playfully over their inappropriate articles. Too late.

"Uh…I don't know. I've just never had any use for it I guess." I tried to think back. Bella was always more than ready the second I walked into a room, never mind by the time we actually got around to anything. Lube was superfluous in my world. Deal with it Rose.

I licked my lips involuntarily thinking of how wet Bella could get from the mere anticipation. It was a power I would happily bask in for an eternity.

"Everyone needs it some time. What about the times when it's all fast and furious and there's not enough foreplay?" Rose asked, her perfectly groomed eyebrows knit together obstinately. I couldn't tell if she was horrified, confused, or just genuinely interested.

My mother's eyes squeezed shut momentarily and I knew she was not successfully blocking out Rosalie's third degree. I took a few steps back, trying in vain to widen the distance between me and the women, both literally and figuratively. I leaned against the side of the baby grand that sat between the main living room and the solarium where the television and the old gaming systems used to sit.

"Pfft." I quietly dismissed Rosalie's ludicrous statement with a wave of my hand. "There's always time for foreplay. Sometimes _everything _is foreplay. A look from across the room can be arousing, Rosalie. You never just jump into 'hard and fast'. You do it like that because you want it, you fucking _need _it. And when you need it that bad every second leading up to it is enticing. By the time you finally connect you should be more than ready. The way I see it, lube is for amateurs," I growled out my words, crashing one into the next with a tone that was much firmer than I meant it to be. I was kind of feeling like _my_ manhood was being called into question for some reason. Well, fuck that. Unfortunately, a little too late, I remembered who was seated on the floor just four feet away from me with her cheeks red and her lips mashed together. "Shit." My eyes shot to my mother.

Rosalie waved her hand at her. "Don't worry, she's not paying attention."

"I'm not paying attention," my mom echoed in a tone that was so constrained she obviously _was_. I scowled at Rosalie for forcing this asinine conversation out of me in her company.

"Maybe I'm just _that_ good," I whisper-mouthed, feeling incredibly agitated and defensive, trying to end the argument so I could run away fast.

She scoffed and shook her head. "Wait," she held her palm up in between us, a pensive look on her face as she chose the words to form her new thought carefully. "So...what do you use to, you know, whack-off with?"

"Jesus, Rosalie! Shut up." I pushed myself off the edge of the piano and shoved her against the pillows of the couch until she was flattened and shrieking. I refused to make eye-contact or even glance in the general direction of my mother.

"Oh, give me a break," Rosalie growled when I finally finished pummelling her with pillows. She sat up and pushed her hair back over her shoulders, muttering under her breath. She straightened her blouse and looked up at me. Her eyes were expectant. "Well?"

"Baby oil," I answered just so she would shut the hell up.

"Really? That's weird."

_Is it?_

"Why not just use lube?" she asked. She honestly never shut up. Seriously. How the fuck did my brother tolerate her?

_I love and appreciate Isabella so much right now…_

"Well apparently, it's sticky and 'not cool' so…" I smirked and threw her words back at her.

She smiled. "Yes. But unless you've tried it you wouldn't know that, would you?"

"Well then because I'm a creature of habit." I had no idea why I said that. It only perpetuated the horrifying conversation.

"Huh?" Rose questioned.

"I don't know. I guess when you're thirteen and want to jerk-off there isn't a whole lot of lube lying around the house. But you share a bathroom with your sister and her drawer has baby oil in it, so…" I trailed off, the rest of that story becoming blindingly, _embarrassingly, _obvious.

Rose clutched her knees to her chest in a fit of uncharacteristic giggles at my expense before finally calming down enough to speak again. "Fair enough, but it still seems odd. Why not use lotion or something? And I still call bullshit about never using it _with _someone. Sometimes there just isn't enough time…"

"Maybe I have better priorities," I whispered harshly, cutting her spoken thoughts off midstream.

She snorted as if that couldn't possibly be the explanation.

"Hey, don't get pissy with me because you married the sexually inept brother," I gloated at her.

"Hey! I never said that!" she shrieked.

"Uh huh." I winked at her, just like the cocky little bastard I could sometimes be.

"Oh fuck off, Edward. You act like you're some kind of god in the bedroom," she hissed at me.

I placed both palms again the back of the sofa and leaned into it. I abruptly forgot all about my mother and my own discomfort, and wanted only to further infuriate the intolerable little blonde who had successfully crawled under my skin and irritated the shit out of me. I narrowed my eyes at her in a way that I had only ever done to Bella, purely to drive home my point. The left corner of my upper lip rose crookedly and the tip of my tongue swept underneath it before breathing out a quiet but firm retort.

"I am."

She snorted at me but was noticeably flustered. Her eyes left mine and darted everywhere and nowhere all at once. I just stared back at her and smiled. I was _that_ good and I fucking knew it. I smiled at her, feeling like whatever little game we had just played, I won.

It took her a moment to recover, but when she did her eyes squinted at mine and she shoved me away from the couch. "Don't flash that crooked Cullen grin at me, Edward. I'm immune." It sounded weak. "Besides, if I really wanted to know the truth, I could just track down some girl who's laid you before and ask her about your sex-god status. Hmm…" she tapped the pads of her fingertips against her lower lip. "Where would I find such a girl?" She raised both eyebrows at me innocently.

I glowered at her.

As if on fucking cue, Bella came traipsing in through the kitchen. If I had been paying attention, I would have heard her old truck rumbling up the driveway. Rosalie obviously had. The smirk on her face confirmed it.

"Good grief. You guys look tense. What are we talking about in here?" she asked when she saw the way I was hovering threateningly over Rosalie.

"Oh, nothing," Rosalie sing-songed. "Just how Edward thinks he can smirk the panties right off any woman he so chooses." I winced and glared at her. That was hardly what I said.

"Oh really?" Bella's face lit up, eyes wide and admonishing. I knew that underneath it was a playful smile, but I still didn't want her thinking _that _was what I had said. Not that she would. She knew me better than that. Still, she raised her eyebrows in challenge. "You're _that_ confident, huh, Cullen?"

A few seconds of staring across the living room dumbfounded at her, and then the gears caught and turned nicely inside my brain. Suddenly, the game got a whole lot more enticing. A quick glance to confirm that my mother was playing the Piggy game with Olivia's bare little toes and tuning us out, and then I put my game face on. I sauntered with exaggerated slowness over to where Bella stood near the doorway.

"Oh, I am _that _confident, Miss Swan," I purred, taking a long step toward her, my fingers curling and uncurling by my sides as they began to ache in anticipation of touching her. The promise rushed to them in a wave of warmth, spreading out through the rest of my body, awakening every corner of it. I knew without a doubt Bella would feel the same burn.

She rolled her eyes and glanced over my shoulder at Rosalie as I took another slow step toward her. The blush that lit her cheeks confirmed that my sister-in-law was watching with perverse anticipation.

"Don't roll your eyes at me." My voice was all thick gravel crunching out words as my eyes swept away from hers. They travelled down her body, over the swell of her breasts that showed perfectly through the light tank top, and down her creamy legs. I paused, momentarily distracted by an inclination to lick the delicate, porcelain skin of the inside of her thigh that was visible below the hem of her shorts, and then I forced my eyes back up to hers. Bella gulped audibly. My predatory smile widened until I showed all my teeth. I took another step forward.

_Wet._ So fucking wet.

"Stop stalking me, Edward," Bella hissed. "It isn't going to work." Her voice was tight and forced. I had already noticed the telltale waver in it that possibly only _I_ would detect. The waiver that meant her heart was racing and her blood was speeding through her veins.

The ache that I had begun to feel earlier when I thought about how wet I could make her with just a look came back to me with vengence. It snarled through me and reached out to lap at Bella's skin before I even touched her–readying her for me just as I had imagined.

Somewhere behind me, Rosalie scoffed as Bella squirmed and shuffled backward. Her back met with the wall beside the doorway she had just come through with a dull thud. The swing door was still swishing to a stop beside us.

"Is that so?" I murmured, closing in on her faster now that she was at a perfect standstill.

She nodded. It was feeble. I was already victorious. But because I have always been competitive and felt like I needed to defend my manhood, I continued. For every step I took forward, Bella's chest rose and fell with more force. She looked up to me as I stopped right in front of her. I could feel the heat rolling off her little body in waves and rippling through mine, igniting everything it touched. It wasn't a one-way street, though. Bella had the very same effect on me, I just wasn't disputing it.

My lips were pursed together. I breathed firmly in and out of my nose, eyes like steel trained on hers until she blinked and looked down to avert my gaze. It was an amateur mistake, she couldn't see what I planned to do next.

I slid my warmed palm over her cheek and across her neck, gripping her tightly with my fingertips at the back. Her eyes shot up to mine, slightly panicked. "What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Proving a point," I purred back. I felt her shudder. My fingertips twisted little pieces of her hair around them, holding her where I wanted her.

"Well, don't."

"You don't really mean that," I whispered back, my voice matching hers. I was no longer interested in whether or not I was making a clear demonstration to my irritating sister-in-law. She may or may not have heard me. I was speaking to Bella. She was the only one I would ever try this on.

I drug my hand from the back of her neck, around, making sure to swipe a few stray fingers along her collar bone, until I had a solid grip on her chin. My fingertips held her jaw and I pushed the pad of my thumb rather roughly against her lips. They were closed shut as she fought back the near hyperventilation that threatened to take her over.

I pushed, it was gentle yet…it wasn't, tilting her head to the side away from me. I bent down and pressed into her so that my lips touched the shell of her ear as I whispered roughly, "You look like you're having a hard time breathing, baby. Are you okay?" When I finished speaking, the tip of my tongue flicked at her ear.

Her chest heaved. I leaned my entire body in so that I was balancing on the balls of my feet and pressed against her. My knee wedged between her thighs, our hips meeting bone to bone, while my hard chest lay against the sweet cushion of hers.

I took the tip of her earlobe in between my teeth and bit, gently at first and then slowly sinking in deeper until I heard the sharp intake of breath hiss between her clenched teeth. I raked over the smooth skin while my hand that wasn't gripping her chin reached until it tangled with the tips of her hair that floated down her back. I twisted my fingers into it and tugged, forcing her to arch her back, which drove her chest, nipples and all, against me more roughly. Her head was angled backward, granting me access to all the sweetest, most tender spots of her throat and clavicle. My mouth watered with the urge to lick everything in sight.

Perhaps it had only been seconds since I began proving my point, but time seemed to slip away in a blur until it held no meaning whatsoever. All that mattered was my body, pressed solidly against Bella's, her breath on my cheek, and the silken skin in front of me.

My lips slid from under her ear to the top of her shoulder. I wasn't technically kissing her, just dragging my mouth along her skin, my breath washing over her. Occasionally, I would lay my tongue, flat and wet, against her heated skin, smirking through my look of utter concentration at the thrill that it alotted me, knowing it was mutual.

When I got to the dip where her neck met her shoulder, I sucked her sweet skin into my mouth and kissed, knowing the precise moment to stop before a mark would be left. My fingers dug a little deeper into the skin around her chin and jaw. The tip of my thumb curled over her lower lip and I could just feel her teeth scrape against the pad of it. Sharp met soft and it was a delicious dichotomy.

Her last outtake of air did a weird hitching thing and I knew what was coming next. I reached out and caught her by the elbows just as her knees buckled under the force she could no longer fight. _Because of me._ I corrected her posture, snickered to myself, though she heard me as well, and stood back a few inches, still holding her against the wall.

"I rest my case," I murmured in a husky voice. I slowly released my hands from her shoulders so she had time to adjust and would not go crashing to the floor like an abandoned marionette.

I backed away with my eyes still on her clouded gaze, while she panted and tried to collect herself. She knew that I knew she was so fucking wet for me in that moment. I winked at her and licked my lips. I could practically taste her on them.

"Good Lord," Rose muttered. Obviously my illustration was a success. Her words seemed to snap everyone but me from their perspective dazes.

"Edward Anthony!" my mother shrieked at me. Her shrill tone was finally enough to reach me in my lust-filled derangement. I had obviously forgotten all about her being in the room, bearing witness to such an overt sexual advancement. And to think the discussion of lubricant had embarrassed me.

I spun around and saw both her and Rosalie gaping at me, though Rose had an entertained smile on her face while my mother just looked horrified.

I considered us even for the afternoon.

"What?" I barked, slightly disgruntled. "I thought you weren't paying any attention."

"I am your mother. And I am _always _paying attention," she reprimanded my loose liberties.

"Well then, I guess that shouldn't be all that shocking…should it?" I defended. I couldn't help the devious little smirk that played on the left corner of my mouth.

I faintly heard Bella mutter something about me being "such an ass" as I chuckled and walked away, leaving the three women to fend for themselves in my wake. I felt a little sharper and more alert from all the adrenaline, so I climbed the stairs to see if my father wanted to forgo the disgusting, rubbery lasagne and have our chat then.

I had more or less forgotten about the lubricant-incident by the time we were all gathered around the dinner table that evening. Hopefully, everyone else had as well.

Rosalie and Olivia were still there. They were planning to stay a few nights with us while my brother was out of town for work. Alice was also there, since she had stopped by for a visit, remarkably, right at meal time. She graciously agreed to stay.

At the dinner table, she spoke in her typical lightening-fast fashion to anyone who would pay her any attention. With Alice's chipper voice in the background, I watched Bella who had offered to feed Olivia in order to give Rosalie a rare chance to eat a meal while it was still hot and in peace.

_So much for peace, _I chuckled to myself as Alice talked her ear off. But Rosalie seemed to be enjoying the adult conversation.

Olivia had smashed up scalloped potatoes on her chin and a pea squished to her cheek. She giggled and banged her little fist on the highchair tray every time Bella made swirly airplane motions with her pink plastic spoon, as if it were the funniest thing she had ever seen.

After all the plates were cleared from dinner, we all sat around the table sipping tea and coffee and chatting comfortably. Bella leaned over and wiped up mushed teething biscuit from Olivia's cheeks and fingers, giggling playfully with her.

Bella's chair was to the right of mine, and I had angled myself so that I could rest my foot on the bar on the far side of hers, straddling the back of it with my other leg. The inside of my right knee brushed the outside of her thigh. I was _very _aware of the contact as I silently plotted ways to excuse ourselves from the rest of the family to finish all the thoughts that had been swirling around in my head since I torture-teased her against the wall earlier. I wanted Bella in more ways than I could articulate.

I watched her with a sense of warm affection that I couldn't quite place, as she interacted with my niece. Whatever the emotion was, I was entirely comfortable with it. It just felt right. Bella shined when she was caring for someone else. I learned that many times over whenever I was sick or upset or even just plagued by a particularly intense headache. Bella was a caregiver. It was embedded deep into her nature. She glowed. It made my heart happy to watch.

I leaned my chin against the top of her shoulder and smiled at her and Olivia, even if neither of them were paying any attention to me. They were lost in their own little world of silly faces and giggles and sticky cookie mess. Bella's hair smelled sweet and intoxicating that close to my nose. I reached down and looped a finger through the belt loop at the back of her shorts, my thumb lightly brushed the skin beneath her tank top.

My father and mother were talking "shop" at their end of the table, planning some charity function or another, the likes of which they were forever involved with. Alice was still prattling about some new shop opening up in downtown Seattle and plotting a weekend that she and Rose could go investigate its worth. After several failed attempts to get Bella to agree to come along, she had her attention refocused on Rose.

Bella swiped the warm cloth over Olivia's chin and then idly reached out to twirl a tiny corn silk pigtail. They looked more like an insect's antennae than anything else as they poked up in half-inch tufts from Olivia's little head. Her eyes followed Bella's hand, forcing her head to loll to the side dizzily as she laughed and slobbered with her own fist at her mouth.

"Someday…I want a pretty little blond-haired baby just…like…you," Bella cooed, tapping Olivia's nose that was already covered in biscuit again.

I scoffed loudly, unintentionally catching the attention of everyone at the table–which I failed to notice. Bella turned around in her seat to glare backward at me. This also drove her knee deep between my legs. Her hand rest on the top of my thigh and she narrowed her eyes at me.

"What's your problem?" she asked innocently.

"Nothing." I smirked. Love flooding through me as my mind chased itself in circles. "Just that…unless you know something about genetics that nobody else does, I wouldn't hold my breath for that blonde-haired baby." I laughed lightly at her, nudging her thigh with my knee. "The best you can hope for is a kid with slightly tameable hair. But it definitely won't be blonde." I was obviously referring to the fact that both Bella and I had very dark shades of DNA-dominating, brown hair.

I thought nothing of my comment. That was…until I heard a quick gasp behind me, like an insect humming by my ear. I turned around and saw my mother with her hand clapped over her mouth, looking down into her teacup trying not to indicate that she was eavesdropping again. And then there was my father with an oddly proud smirk on his face. I ignored them both and turned my attention back to the messy-faced toddler in front of me.

I did, however, note the blush decorating the apples of Bella's cheeks. I hadn't meant to embarrass her. Again. I made a mental note to atone nicely for all the inappropriate attention I had been drawing to her that day. I would make her forget all about it once I got her alone. I just had to figure out _how _first.

Unfortunately, no such time came. Before I knew it, I was engrossed in a rich conversation with my father over a tumbler of ancient scotch that he had received from someone on the Board as a Christmas gift the year before. Bella, who had been quietly curled up with a blanket on the sofa talking with my sister and Rosalie, stood up and excused herself from the room with a yawn and heavy, sleepy feet as she climbed the stairs for bed.

My father's voice floated tino the background of my awareness as my eyes drifted over his shoulder to Bella's slow, cumbersome movements. I noticed her white knuckles as she held tight to the railing while she clamoured toward the top. I silently willed her not to fall out of sheer exhaustion. I also willed her to grab a sweat shirt from my duffle bag or an extra blanket out of the linen closet at the top of the stairs. She was clad only in a thin tank top and ratty old sweat pants that had been cut off just above the knee and were way too big on her.

The air conditioning unit in my parent's basement blew up the day before, sticking the fans on full-blast. A repair person was scheduled to come the later in the week, but in the meantime, the house was fucking freezing.

Much later that night, I climbed into bed with a peacefully slumbering Bella. She had the comforter pulled up around her shoulders and a hoodie on with the hood up. I chuckled quietly at her, though apparently, not quietly enough.

"S'thing funny?" she mumbled, rolling toward me and nuzzling against my chest without opening her eyes.

"Not at all." I gently pushed the hood away from her cheeks and off her head.

She smiled a small smile while still looking asleep. The zipper of the sweatshirt was not done up. It hung open, exposing her ribbed tank top and the pale skin above it that shone in the dark room. I placed a feather-light kiss just at the swell of her breast, silently admiring its rounded perfection. Of their own volition, my fingertips traced the line against the neck of the top, over the rise of her breast, across its peak, down, and up again on the other. Her eyes remained closed but she hummed softly, barely audible in the quiet room.

"Perfect," I whispered, though in truth, I hadn't meant to say it aloud.

Bella scoffed but the smile stayed at her lips.

"What?" You _are_ perfect." I placed another small kiss. My intention wasn't to start anything further. Sometimes, the sight of her just overwhelmed me. I literally ached to touch her.

But then, I remembered my restitution debt. And the way the lines of her body were visible even through the dark.

Once, several years prior, my father, Emmett and I had been walking through a department store at Christmas time, when a woman from a fragrance counter asked if we would like to sample the scent she was demonstrating. My father and I walked on after excusing ourselves politely, while Emmett stayed and sniffed the paper stick she held out to him. He then sniffed her and offered her a list of cheesy compliments before jogging off catching up with us. When we teased him about it he said it was because the girl had "a hot rack". To which I scoffed and my father smacked him against the back of his skull for.

Indignant, Emmett turned on us saying that if we hadn't noticed then clearly neither of us were "boob men". He demanded to know what kind of men we were.

My father, ever the gentleman, replied that he was partial to a woman's eyes. That earned him a hearty laugh from both of his sons. His cheeks coloured and he winked in our direction, but said no more.

When they both looked expectedly in my direction, I gave the idea less than a moment's thought before opening my mouth. There was no need, I had thought about my favourite part of a woman's body countless times before, only to come up with the same simple idea each time. A small smile lit my face and my brother rubbed his palms together in anticipation of what he no doubt already imagined would be a crass reply. He was going to be disappointed.

"I don't think I have a favourite part, exactly," I replied. "There are too many." Emmett slapped my shoulder in approval and laughed, but he was misled, that wasn't what I meant. "No, I mean… I just like the way a woman's body looks…like…when she walks. The curves and the lines of it. Like, that little dip on the inside of her hipbone. Or the line of her hip as it bleeds into her leg. And the dimples at the small of her back right before her ass. And the way her neck curves against her shoulder blades and then down her spine.

"There's just something so…fragile, but not, you know? I don't know. There's just so many little places that you can't help but love the beauty in them. That's what I mean…" I trailed off lamely, suddenly feeling uncomfortable for launching into such an intimate rant.  
"So…you're an ass man," my brother snorted, determined. "Sweet." And with that crude assessment he sauntered off. My father smirked and nodded almost to himself before he began moving after Emmett. He mumbled something about knowing precisely what I meant and then he was gone.

I remember following after them thinking that there must be something wrong with me for having such old-fashioned tastes. However, kneeling on the edge of the bed, looking down at an angelic woman with dark hair spilling across my pillowcase, eyes closed in a state of half-slumber, eyelashes long and dark and graceful against her cheekbone, her skin luminescent amidst the inky dark surroundings, I knew there was nothing wrong with loving so many of the small pieces that built the mystery of her. I appreciated every last line of Bella's body for what it was. For its strength and purity, and for everything sweet and amazing she ever offered me.

I pushed back the blankets and placed my legs on other side of her, straddling her knees. Her brows knit together in wonderment but she didn't open her eyes or say a word. With just the tip of one finger I softly pulled down the top of her sweatpants just below her hip and placed a slow kiss in the dip that I had adored.

"You're prefect here," I whispered, and let go of the waistband on the pants, allowing them to settle against her skin once more. I pushed up the hem of her tank top with both palms, smoothing over the skin of her ribs. I stopped after only an inch. I kissed the hollow below her ribs. "And here... And here." I pushed the fabric higher and kissed the extraordinary arc of the underside of her breast, pushing my thumbs under the shirt even higher and brushing against both nipples. Underneath me her hips shifted in response.

I smiled down at her, even if she could not see me. I sunk back onto my heels and shimmied myself down her legs further, bringing her pants with me. She arched herself off the mattress without me having to say a word, and soon she was bare from the waist down.

I lifted and arranged each leg before kissing the inside of both thighs. I held to the outside of her knees while stroking the undersides with my fingertips as I kissed slowly, following the lean, simple line of her leg to the place she wanted me most.

Her fingers didn't twist into my hair like I half expected. Instead, one hand scratched gently at the nape of my neck while I atoned. Her other hand gripped the loose hem of her sweatshirt as it lay open on the bed where she tugged and worried at it while I built her to a slow, gentle release.

I knew she was getting close from the way her hand at my neck stilled and stiffened while her hips did the opposite–shifting and writhing beneath me. Slowly, I rode one hand from her knee, up her thigh, and over the curve of her hip. I coasted along her ribs and over her breast so I could rest two fingertips against her lower lip. I didn't break from what I was doing, nor did I have to. She parted her lips and I felt the warmth and wetness of her tongue as she wrapped her lips around my fingers and sucked on them, wetting the for me.

They didn't need the added moisture, it was just a really fucking hot thing to do. I slid them inside her and within seconds she was falling apart all around me. Her thighs shook, her knees knocked against my shoulders, and her insides hugged my fingers. She pulled me up to her and I noticed her eyes were still closed.

I kissed her chin and then the apple of her cheek, and lay flat beside her. I rolled her into me to cradle against my warmth since I had stripped her of most of her clothing, without any intention of replacing it. Just before I closed my eyes, hers fluttered halfway open and she smiled up at me.

"I love you," she whispered, kissing me gently, yet with a fierce honesty that I couldn't help but feel. When our lips finally broke apart, she nestled her head against the dip in my shoulder and slid her arm over my torso, underneath my tee shirt, seeking more warmth.

Under the sheets, her toes wiggled against mine. I pulled the downy comforter up around her shoulders as she snuggled deeper into me. The familiar pinprick of emotion was back behind my eyes and deep inside my heart.

"So fucking perfect," I whispered back, and drifted off to sleep with Bella in my arms.

* * *

Seriously.

I wanna be them.

*kicks something*

Anyway.

Next stop: BALTIMORE

I will have several people whom have been helping me navigate good ole B'More. I shall thank them next week when their information will be basically the entire chapter. LOL

But thanks in advance guys! You are the best.

Love me!

Air

xox


	34. Define More

Did you see the update to my profile page?

I've posted an update schedule for both this story and A Chance Encounter, for anyone interested.

It's written in meager pen and paper, not stone so...try not to hunt me down should I deviate. But I will try not to. Deal?

The end is near...

*passes around tissue boxes*

I know right?

Air

xox

* * *

"Absolutely not." I demanded. There must have been something in my tone this time because the words finally registered across her face. She knew I'd had enough and that the subject was officially closed.

Don't misunderstand. I was never an "iron fist" sort of boyfriend. I was generally pretty easy-going as long as you didn't count my mind's naturally brooding tendencies, and I rarely questioned Isabella or overruled any of her decisions. I was the definition of encouraging and suppostive. I strived to work on my patience with anything that concerned her. However, I was done with all of that for the moment.

_Iron fist,__ meet, table. It's going to be my way. End story. _

"You're ridiculous," she spat at me and stomped out of the bedroom, flipping her hair over her shoulder as if she were any other generic, angry girl in the world and not my Bella who was above such nonsense. Then, she slammed the door behind her.

I half expected the shoddy, termite-infested thing to fall off its hinges right before my eyes. Her intentionally heavy footfalls stormed across the wooden flooring in the front room. I opened the bedroom door just in time to catch the front one banging shut. The eight zillion industrial-strength deadbolts rattled loudly in protest.

Seriously, Ilived in downtown New York, albeit Manhattan, but still, my apartment only had a single deadbolt, and it was broken most of the time. There was just no way in hell I would feel safe allowing Bella to live alone in a never-walk-through-around-after-dark-or-even-dusk neighbourhood that was clearly so unsafe the residents felt the need for bars on their windows and that many locks on their front doors. Fuck that. It just wasn't happening.

Thus, the iron fist. Something was going to have to give. And by something...I meant Bella.

I rolled my eyes and hurried after her. If I thought the apartment was dodgy, it was nothing compared to what might be lurking outside. I did not want Bella huffing around all cute and angry like a kitten that fell into a filled bathtub, in her Burberry trench coat and thousand dollar boots, up and down the alley alone.

I flew down the interior staircase and pushed through the front doors, my head screaming from left to right when I didn't immediately see her where I expected her to be. I was about three seconds _past _panicking when she cleared her throat from somewhere behind me.

She was leaning against the open doorway that I just stormed through. Apparently, I was too distracted to notice it _not _clicking shut behind me. She was on the inside of the threshold. The toe of her boot held the brass contraption open in front of her and there was a satisfied smile on her face.

"You didn't actually think I was going to go stomping around by myself out there, did you? This neighbourhood is pretty questionable," she snickered, conceding to the point I had been trying to drill through her stubborn skull for the last two hours of apartment hunting.

"Fuck, you're irritating," I grumbled, backtracking up the top two stairs to reclaim her hand in mine and lead her back to the borrowed car.

"You love me," she sneered as she climbed in the passenger-side door I held open for her.

"Doesn't make you any less irritating." I leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose before shutting the door and rounding the car to my side.

"So now what?" she asked as I started up the engine. "That was everything I could afford within ten miles of Brooklyn Park. I can't afford the time it would take every day to get to The Sun if I venture any further away, and I can't afford the cost of living in any of the nicer neighbourhoods that are closer." She crashed her head back into the headrest and half sighed, half growled in growing frustration.

I felt bad for her. I hated seeing her so worried and upset. Bella was always the perfect counter to my mind's incessant need to panic and conjure up worst-case scenarios. Bella was cool and logical. She was confident in positive outcomes. She was smiley. She was _not _the growling, stomping thing she was turning into this afternoon.

Unfortunately, she was right in her assessment. As it was, in the neighbourhood we were looking at, it would be taking her forty-five minutes on the public transit system to get to work every morning. Any further and she may as well move in with me and take the train into Baltimore every day…which was an idea so fucking appealing that I refused to even let it linger in my brain long enough to take root and get on it's knees and beg.

"What the hell am I going to do? I feel so screwed," she whined, rolling her head to the side to peer over at me.

_Another intriguing idea…_

"I don't know." I shrugged and pulled out onto the road. I _did_ know…only I also knew she was going to fight me tooth and nail when I suggested it and so I had been waiting, hoping that she would draw her own logical conclusions so I didn't have to be the bad guy.

I had already offered to pay for some of her stay in Baltimore over the next year to take the edge off of her savings. Otherwise she was going to have to live in a rat hole attic studio in an unsecured building like the one we had just visited. I reasoned that I would rather put out a bit of my own money for a year than take a decade off my life by stressing out about her walking in the dark and being mugged...or worse. My blood moved quicker just at the thought.

Not to mention that in several years time none of it would make a difference. Her money. My money. It would all be _ours _and I would like her to live long enough to see to it that happened.

But it was Isabella Swan, and she wrote the book on stubborn. She argued that I couldn't afford it any more than she could, which technically was right, given that I was going to be living the next several years on savings and University stipends, and my parents still paid the rent on my apartment, but that was beside the point. Her safety was a far more pressing matter.

Driving with absolutely no destination in mind, a glance over at the way her face was all twisted in an angry admission, and I could tell she had finally thought of her only solution. She was going to have to call Charlie and work out a deal. Bella hated asking anyone for anything, especially help, but it was her only remaining option. She was going to have to suck it up and make the call that every university kid has had to make at some point asking their parents for money.

We made our way down the hill and toward the harbour. I could see it peeking out behind the buildings on my left as we crawled into another area of the city's outskirts. I liked the red paving stones that made up the sidewalks and the cheerful green awnings over the retail shops in that particular neighbourhood. I turned a corner and parked the car, taking a few deep breaths before getting out, refusing to look back at Bella so she could have an opening to argue or whine at me.

I jogged across the street into the bagel shop and grabbed two coffees, some sandwiches, and another newspaper since the copy we were working off of was a week old and had been folded, unfolded, crumpled, and trashed beyond recognition. Not to mention that the red Sharpie circling the apartments for slaughter we had just visited were unfortunately blocking out the details of the nicer ones we _should _and _would _be considering from then on.

I whistled quietly to myself as I waited at the quaint intersection for a car to turn, noticing the brick facades of the shops and apartments above them, and the dark green shutters on the upper storey windows. I liked the area…whatever area of Baltimore it was. It may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn the sun was even shining a little brighter there.

I opened Bella's door and finally met her narrowed gaze. I smiled cheerfully at her and dangled the white bag containing the sandwiches in front of her face. She smiled and got out of the car. Her hand laced through my arm as we made our way back across the side street to the bistro tables outside the café. Her hair glowed with its rarely seen auburn sheen in the sun…which was _definitely _shining brighter.

We took our seats and I ate in silence, allowing her whatever time I knew she would need to wrap her mind around the idea of calling her father to ask for money. It was no small concession and I could appreciate that. I was halfway through my sandwich and coffee before Bella had even touched hers.

Her fingertips worried at the edges of the foil wrapping around her sandwich and her coffee was cooling off. Emptying my own cup, I reached over and popped the top off of her coffee and stirred in the two little cups of creamer that were still in the bag so it was the way she liked. I closed my fingers around hers on the tabletop and dragged her hand until it met with the paper cup. Then, I leaned back in my seat and smiled at her.

"Drink. And eat, please."

"I really don't want to have to call my dad," she whined, her shaky voice just above a whisper.

The defeated look on her face was killing me. She had worked hard all through high school and what little she could afford since so that she never had to ask her father, who barely scraped by as it was, for anything. But an unpaid fellowship in a big city when your account was nearing depletion was going to require some assistance. I just wished she didn't see it as such a personal fail. Her father was immensely proud of her and dying for the chance to help if she ever needed it. I knew that he would feel it was the least he could offer for everything his caring, overly compassionate daughter had ever done for him over the years.

"I know," I sympathized, and left it at that.

"But I guess I don't really have a choice, do I?" Her eyes looked over my shoulder and back up the hill to where we left the concrete buildings without green shutters and lack of friendly corner bistros.

I shook my head.

Slowly, she dug through her bag and retrieved her cell phone and made the call. I could tell from her end of the conversation that Charlie, not only had no problem helping Bella, but also that he was anticipating her call just as I imagined he would be.

I smiled into my coffee and tried to hide my expression beneath the rim of my cup when I heard Bella say, "You didn't have to do that already, dad, but I _really _appreciate it. I mean, you should _see_ some of the places Edward and I have looked at today…"

I guess didn't conceal my arrogant smirk well enough, because she promptly booted me in the shin from under the table. I sputtered on my coffee and she had to angle the receiver away from her mouth so she could giggle at me. I winked at her and a slight blush decorated the apples of her cheeks. Her hair glowed and her face was angelic in the sun with the traces of worry and dread lifted from it. The late summer breeze blew around her wisps of auburn as it came in off the harbour.

And the sun _definitely _shone brighter in Federal Hill.

~SS~

The rent was about three hundred and fifty dollars a month more than the previous places we had looked, but eventually, Bella found a very appropriate two bedroom, one bathroom row home for rent in the middle of Federal Park. The building had a brick exterior and was the last in a line of five homes, bordered on the eastern side by a small park. The entire eastern wall, both upstairs and down, was brick on the inside. It was a loft-style house, with the tiny bathroom and bedroom upstairs overlooking the rest of the home from over a short pony wall. There were original, yet nicely refurbished, hardwood floors throughout, and a decent kitchen with freshly painted white cupboards and a black and white tiled backsplash.

A large sliding glass door at the centre of her living room led onto a small balcony and a set of wrought-iron railed cement stairs descending into a backyard about the size of my parent's walk-in closet back home, but the small section of green grass was still nice. There was even a wobbly little tree in the far corner with red leaves and bark mulch around its base. I felt comfortable leaving Bella there. Well…I did it any way, though _comfortable _may have been a bit of a stretch.

Bella showed up to The Sun main offices everyday throughout the week with few exceptions. While it was technically unpaid, it was the networking opportunity of a lifetime for a journalist fresh out of school. And once the year was up, if she played her cards right, she would have highly accredited recommendations and quite an impressive resume to go along with her new network directory. Finding a job would be a piece of cake.

The long hours she put in of volunteering and schmoozing left little time for travel, regardless of how close I was. Luckily, it didn't prove to be that insurmountable of an issue. However, my neck and back ached as I used my own key and entered the house as quietly as I could. I kicked off my shoes and climbed the stairs to the bedroom, yawning and holding onto the rail to keep from tumbling backward out of sheer exhaustion. A faint yellow glow shone down the stairwell from the bathroom light, which I knew Bella left on for me so I could see when I came in.

Quickly shedding the majority of my clothes, I was eager to climb into bed with the warmest, sweetest thing I could ever imagine. She rolled over and put her arm around me, snuggling into me but then pushing herself back to look up at me and smile a very sleepy yet appreciative smile.

"It's late. What time is it?" she asked, blinking and getting comfortable again against me.

"Just after one."

"Mmm."

I held onto her tight, appreciating that she was what was always missing during the dark weeknights I spent at my apartment in New York. My fingers trailed over her hip and along the bottom hem of the boy shorts she was wearing, tickling goose bumps out of the delicate skin there. She hummed and nestled deeper against me, perfectly cradled in my arms.

"And you don't have to go back until Monday?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Nope."

"Awesome." Her voice was just a whisper, but I felt it somewhere deeper as if it were much, much louder. Her fingers slid over my shoulder, up the column of my neck, and into my hair. "I'm glad you're here, you came just in time. This pillow was starting to smell like me again. I like it better when it smells like you."

I burrowed my nose deep into her hair behind her ear. "You smell me?" I asked in a familiar squeaky imitation. It was a funny line from our favourite cartoon from when we were kids, The Land Before Time.

She giggled.

"You know, I'm really starting to like it here in Baltimore," I admitted quietly, hugging her to me.

"Oh, you mean the city isn't full of vagrants and pirates like you first thought?"

"Arrr," I joked, feeling light and playful despite being overwhelmingly exhausted. I tickled her side until she shoved me away, kicking at me and tossing the sheets around. "Nope, not every street is bad. This one is beginning to grown on me. I like my little home here." I pulled the blankets back up around us and closed my eyes.

"This isn't our real home, Edward. Washington is. I miss the ocean."

"Oh yeah, freezing cold beaches and gloomy skies…what's not to miss?" I teased, not knowing exactly where she was headed with that comment.

"I'm serious." She lifted her head up to look at me.

"Oh. Well, of course Washington will be our home, eventually," I reassured. "Shit, do you hate being on the east coast that much? I know it takes a lot of adjusting… I'm sorry, Bella…"

"No! Don't be silly. I love it here. I just wanted to make sure." She hugged me tighter and placed a kiss on the underside of my chin. "I love you, Edward. You have no idea the impact you have by just being in a room with me. I _need_ to be here."

I had switched the light off in the bathroom as I passed it, so there was very little light in the room, just the faint green tinge from the numbers at the base of her iPod dock and the ambient blue that glowed from underneath it while it played something urban-jazzy and lilting. But I didn't need to see clearly to know that her eyes were closed and there was a soft, content smile on her face as she relaxed against me again. I kissed the top of her head and tightened my hold, revelling in the reassurance it offered me.

"I love you too, baby. Now get some sleep, you have to be up in a few hours.

And just like that, we were both out cold, twisted and curled around one another. Sadly, it felt like mere minutes before her annoying alarm was vibrating through my skull. Bella groaned, but otherwise made no move to get up and silence it. She was always like that. She could peacefully sleep through twenty minutes of constant alarm sounding three inches from her eardrum, whereas I was bristled and wide-eyed the moment it went off desperate to make the noise stop at any cost.

I growled and shoved her off me, pulling a pillow over my head and kicking at her until she got up and turned the damn thing off.

"It's still dark out. What the hell time is it, Bella?" I snarled through the muffle of the pillow, my feet tangled against the comforter after kicking so much.

"Five-thirty," she answered, lifting the pillow, kissing my cheek, and then replacing it over my head a pat. I felt the bed shift as she crawled off and padded toward the bathroom.

_Something very comforting in that soft sound…_

I must have fallen back asleep, because the next thing I knew, the room was lighting a bit and the air was filled with the muggy sweetness of Bella's shower products. With heavy, uncoordinated limbs, I pushed the pillow from my head but kept my face buried in the sheets.

"Why are you up so early, anyway?" I groaned, coughing and clearing my throat just to get the words out. It seriously felt like I had _just _gotten there, and she didn't usually set her alarm for Fridays until seven-thirty or later.

"So I can leave early," she answered sweetly, sounding entirely too chipper given the ungodly time. However, I knew she was rearranging her hours on Fridays so we could spend more time over the weekend together. So, despite my grogginess and otherwise acidic morning temperament, I smiled against the bedsheets.

She crawled onto the matress above the covers and curled herself against my back, kissing my neck. "I have a few extra minutes," she whispered in explanation as she laid her head between my shoulder blades.

"Oh yeah?" I lifted my head off the bed, suddenly much more alert.

"Not _that_ many extra minutes," she chastised smushing her palm against the back of my head and shoving my face back into the sheets with a giggle. "I meant like three."

"I can work within those parameters."

"Oh shut up," she scolded and lay her head back down. Her hair smelled sweet and warm, like it has just been blow-dried. "I should be home by three."

I liked that sentence. For so many fucking reasons.

"Mmmkay."

"I like playing house with you," she murmured into my shoulder.

"Who's playing?" My tone was gravelly with sleep, but the words were serious.

"I have to go now." She kissed the back of my neck again and I heard her heels click against the hardwood all the way down the stairs, around in the living room for a minute while she gathered her things, and then out the front door as the tumblers turned with loud clicks. I went back to sleep.

I awoke late and spent the majority of the afternoon in my underwear on Bella's bed typing away on my laptop. Once I realised the time, I no longer had enough of it to make a proper dinner like I had meant to.

But I owed Bella one. When I came down the week before, I was able to catch the earlier train and show up around seven in the evening. She knew I hadn't eaten anything since lunch, so she had the table from her old townhouse that had been set up in the sunlit little room just off the side of the kitchen prepared with an amazing meal. She made Caprese salad and a pancetta fusili with her own homemade cream sauce that was so good I honestly had the urge to lick the plate afterward. The house smelled of fresh backed bread and olive oil.

So, despite being short on time, I was determined to feed my girl even if it couldn't be homemade. I ran down the street and grabbed forty dollars in Thai food instead. Plus, I _did _have pants on and the table set when she walked in the door, so I considered the whole thing a success.

I heard the dull thud of Bella's bag dropping by the front door. She came through the kitchen just as I was about to come out and greet her.

"Aww…you cooked," she giggled, looking over my shoulder as she stood up on her tippy-toes to kiss me hello. She looked tired. The five AM wake-up had clearly caught up with her.

"I slaved all day. Nothing but the best for you, love," I joked, returning the soft kiss. "Pay no attention to those Styrofoam containers in the trash can."

She followed me into the little makeshift dining room and dished some Pad Thai while I poured two glasses of the Pinot Grigio that I managed to grab while I was out.

"But I _did_ suffer through the ridiculous line-up at the good place instead of just going to that one on the corner that's super quick," I highlighted, looking for approval and nodding enthusiastically at myself as I twirled noodles around my fork and then speared a prawn.

The table was shoved against the corner of the solarium and our chairs framed the other corner. Bella's shoes hit the floor with a click one after the other from somewhere under the table. I scooted my chair closer to hers so I could pull her feet into my lap. I pushed firm circles into the arches of them with one hand while I ate with the other and we finished our dinner.

Two empty bottles of Dessimis later, we abandoned the way Bella was straddled against me on the corner of the couch, the several pieces of clothing we'd already taken off, and the movie which was still running on the little TV downstairs, and made our way up to the bed. The comforter was accidentally shoved onto the floor immediately and we quickly became a sweaty tangle of limbs and hair.

We were on our sides, the blue and green glow from her nightstand outlining facial features just enough to see black circles for eyes and silhouetted hands as they moved against one another's bodies. Bella's face was buried into the crook of my shoulder with a leg thrown over my hip as I directed her with my fingers, digging deep into the flesh of her thigh and ass. Her grip around my neck began to tighten and her noises became irregular, high-pitched mewlings.

Without thinking about the action, I tried to pull back so I could slide my hand between our bodies and down to where we were joined. I wanted to ensure the stars truly exploded around her when she came, but she was having none of that.

"No don't!" she whined frantically, squeezing her arms around my neck and locking me against her. "Stay close to me. Please."

I opened my eyes to the big black ones already looking up at me, blinking innocently, almost begging… as_ if I will ever go anywhere._

I pulled her as tight to my own body as I could physically get her, my lips pressed against the shell of her ear. Her long hair stuck to my sweaty neck and shoulder. "I'm inside of you, Isabella. Does it get any closer?" My words ground out through a clenched jaw and teeth and sent her over the edge. I tumbled quickly after.

Our visits went like that for months. I would sneak away from New York almost every weekend, bringing my laptop and various stacks of scribbled notes and dog-eared books so I could work at home while she was at the paper. I would make her dinner and she would often get up early enough to bring me up breakfast before she left. There was always coffee still warm in the pot whenever I ventured downstairs lazily and we fell into what almost felt like a routine when we were together. It felt warm and safe. I could practically visualise the final few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was my life falling in slow motion all around me, drifting neatly into place. It was our life. And it was finally coming together the way it was always meant to.

We flew home together for the holidays and then back again. Bella stayed at my apartment for a few days before returning to Baltimore at the beginning of January, but not before we shuffled through the three hour-long line up that was wrapped around all of Central Park to go ice-skating. Bella nearly knocked her teeth out, but it was what she wanted, and I got a very hilarious picture on my cell phone so…it was a great holiday.

The months were passing quickly, but they were spent in bliss. I was more focused on my school work than I had been in years, reinvigorated by the reassurance of knowing how close and how available Bella was to me. It was like the ease of being teenagers in Forks all over again, without the youthful naïveté. We appreciated every second spent together. We knew the pain of being apart. We knew the feeling of loss and abandonment over uncertainty. We knew those were feelings we never again wanted to feel. We knew we were iron-clad, a done deal, committed. There would always be our best friend right next to us when we needed it. If I was having a bad night, or just needed to feel her next to me urgently, it was a possibility. Penn Station became a second home to us.

One morning in February I found myself seated patiently at a bench in front of one of the platforms awaiting, not just Bella, but also my mother and father who were travelling with her. "Patient" was, of course, ironic, as I had never excelled in that department. I hadn't seen Bella for almost two weeks, and I was anxious to wrap my arms around her and breathe in her scent.

My knees bounced and my hands fiddled with everything they touched. I shredded the top of my paper coffee cup and was cursing the caffeine I got from it earlier because it was only making me that much more antsy. I just missed Bella. I missed her smile and they way her eyes regarded me even from the other side of the room. I was at home in those eyes. They shined for me in unspoken ways that only I could appreciate. I craved her.

And, of course, I always looked forward to spending time with my parents.

One of my father's long time friends and fellow medical collegues was honoured over the weekend at the annual AMA Leadership Awards ceremony in D.C. The awards were world renown and a highly publicised affair in the medical world every year. Honours were given out to fifteen med students and early professionals along with accolades that would precede them their entire medical careers. They were incredibly lucky. Every med student strived toward an AMA early-recognition honour.

Along with the junior awards, there was also the Jack B. McConnell, MD award for excellence and volunteerism which was given to a senior physician each year for their extraordinary work with patients lacking health care or other means of providence. The gentleman receiving the award this year had gone through medical school at Yale with my father and they did their first several years of residency together before eventually parting ways.

They continued their friendship throughout their separate careers and occasionally joined forces for various charity events or ethics organisations over the years. The two men were _almost _par with their philanthropic involvements and industry recognition, however, my father's friend had never found the time to marry or raise a family, which left him much more time for volunteering with organisations that often removed him from the country, sometimes for years on end.

As coveted as the award was, I was certain that my father would never trade his life and family for the accolade. However, he was incredibly eager to support his lifelong buddy. He and my mother, along with several other colleagues, friends, and their spouses, booked three tables at the Grand Hyatt at nine hundred dollars each to show up and do exactly that.

Afterward, my parents took the train to Baltimore to meet with Bella. She gave them the grand tour of her new city and little home, where they no doubt noticed a good portion of my things that had somehow settled there over the months, and then they were back on the late afternoon train to New York to meet me.

They finally arrived and all three enveloped me in a giant group hug in the middle of the platform. Commuters and travellers rushed by, bumping and shoving us as they impatiently passed. We couldn't have cared less.

After catching up at a coffee shop, where I artfully denied any more caffeine entrance into my system and settled on an herbal tea, we decided we should go somewhere nice for a proper dinner since we all rarely got the chance. While Bella and my mother chatted comfortably curled up on the tattered sofa in my living room, I phoned around and made reservations for the four of us for dinner at One If by Land Two If by Sea. I had taken Bella there once a while back and we both fell in love with the atmosphere and the menu. We were eager to return.

We took a cab that crawled at a snail's pace through the chaotic twists that was the West Village. I was agitated because, like a true New Yorker, I jumped in the cab and bossed around the driver, telling him that from my apartment in the Upper West Side it would be best to take Broadway to Seventh Avenue and follow that all the way down to the restaurant. However, the driver either didn't hear me or didn't care. I was sure cab drivers were sick of their passengers directing them, but sometimes they just took idiotic routes, such as getting us jammed into rush hour traffic somewhere on Washington Street. Frustrated, I snarled under my breath and sat back in my seat, leaving my father up front to small talk with the imbecile.

"Well aren't you just the city rat these days, Edward," my mother joked, ruffling up my hair. I scowled mildly at her. It wasn't because of my hair, which I already knew that was a lost cause before I even left the house– it was always like that when I was weeks overdue for a haircut like I _always_ was. My scowl had more to do with the fact that I wasn't all that partial to considering myself at home in the city, and that whenever I realised I was, I rebelled internally. Also Bella's idea of _home_ had been gnawing away at me slowly and the longer I was in the city, the more I realized that I, too, missed the Pacific Northwest and my family.

"No," I objected, drawing out the one syllable word dramatically and rolling my eyes. "I just have enough common sense to know that even in high traffic a four-lane road with delayed lights is a better alternative to the stop and go of this stupid one lane side street." My voice was intentionally a loud, hoping to, at the very least, prove my worth to the idiot in the driver seat.

Bella smacked my knee from the other side of me. I turned to question her, but it was pretty obvious from the steel look she was shooting me and her delicately shaking head, that she was shutting me up because she thought I was being rude. Personally, I thought that intentionally gouging a group of obvious tourists by taking a long and indirect route was ruder, but it was a lost battle, so I smiled sweetly at her and pressed my lips together in silent signal that I would behave.

When I corrected myself back into my squished position on the hump of the car I noticed my mother and father silently exchanging a loaded look accompanied by soft smirks. My eyes bounced between them for a few seconds before my father turned forward again and my mother glanced and me and smiled dismissively.

Thirty-seven minutes later, I begrudgingly allowed my father to pay the cab fare since he knew I would more than likely withhold a tip or something equally rude and petulant. The table at One was worth the wait. The ambiance was just as demanding as we remembered it. You didn't have a choice but to let it seep its way into the depths of you and unfurl every tightly bound wire you had. It instantly soothed. It put soft, candlelit smiles on everyone's faces and a subtle glow in their eyes.

The restaurant was an elegant paradox between the grand ballroom that it was and its situation inside an old brick cannery in the middle of Washington Square. The walls inside were all either a deep blood red or rustic brick. The only lighting came from the candles scattered throughout the various shelves, table settings, and mantles, along with the dimmed crystal chandeliers that hung from the ceilings. Ornate fireplaces lined the perimeter with elaborate flower arrangements of deep oranges and reds and stark white calla lilies spilling over their crystal vases. There was a series of smaller rooms that bled into one another to create an intimate dining experience no matter where you sat. The whole place fostered a comfortable romance in you as soon as you walked in the door. It was the perfect way to spend an evening with the family you loved.

We placed our order for drinks as soon as the waiter greeted us, and moments later we were all happily sipping our various choices. My mother and Bella hummed in delight at their fruity martinis and garnishes, while my father and I appreciated a tall tumbler of scotch which he selected. The chatter was casual as we glanced over the menus, leaning back comfortably into the incredibly plush red velvet lounge chairs arranged around an elegantly draped round table. My parents were centered on one side with me and Bella balancing out the other.

The menu was a three course prix fixe but it was far different than it had been when Bella and I had been there before. We leaned in toward each other and glanced over a shared menu–mine still politely closed in front of me. We remarked about the differences and Bella was clearly very excited to get a chance to try the duck terrine, which was one of the few items carried over from their previous menu but which the restaurant was out of the night we visited.

I joked that this time she needed to share better than she had the last time, when she stubbornly refused to allow me a scallop because they were apparently _that_ good. Though, she intentionally went to the ladies room with two left on the plate and a smirk on her lips. The waiter cleared the table before she could return.

Bella shook her head adamantly and told me to order whatever I wanted because she had no desire to share until the dessert portion of the meal, which seemed rather unfair to me. I scoffed at her and reminded her of the scallop incident, laughing at her sweet scowl. I was just about to remind her how well I had shared my sea bass when my father cleared his throat with such dramatics that all three of us jolted and looked to him.

He knew he had all of our attention, however, he took his time eyeing each of us individually before loosening his navy tie and rolling up his cuffs. He then wrapped his fingers around his drink and held it toward the centre of the table with a quick glance toward my mother. Under the table, Bella slid her hand over my knee and squeezed, obviously not immune to the air of mysterious ceremony my father was trying to create.

I narrowed my eyes at him, questioning. It was quite obvious that both his thoughts and his gaze were lingering on me, so I was naturally a little on edge for what he was preparing to say.

"I would like to propose a toast of sorts." He scanned all three of our puzzled expressions. Even my mother looked a little out of the loop. We all obediently raised our glasses in salute, even if we were confused.

"Okaaaaay…" I clanked the rim of my tumbler with his.

"To cutting all the bullshit, just for one night," he finished, shooting me a _very _pointed look.

"CARlisle!" my mother screeched and swatted at his forearm causing some of his scotch to slosh over the rim.

"What?" he defended, side-eyeing her and wiping the table with his napkin. He returned his eyes to me and Bella. "Come on."

It wasn't a question. It was a plea to drop the obvious airs Bella and I put on around our families. I could practically _feel _the heat burning off of Bella's cheeks less than six inches from me. I risked what was meant to be a quick glance at her, but her eyes were such a combination of horror and excitement that I found myself double-taking and lingering much longer than I meant to. But I could tell she was game if I was.

I shrugged and tipped my tumbler up toward my father with slightly indignant eyes and then took a sip with a smile. "Fine. But you realise we don't put on some dramatic act intentionally, right? We just shift back and forth so often that it's become second nature to us."

My father returned my shrug, indicating that it was all semantics to him. "Fair enough. Just be comfortable, that's all I'm asking. Be whatever it is that you find the easiest."

The smile on my mother's face was electric now that the shock of my father's brazenness had faded. I supposed it was the first time I had directly confirmed that Bella and I were in fact seeing one another romantically in front of her–not that she hadn't guessed a million years ago, I was sure she had, but she had never heard it from me.

After a minute or two of awkwardness, where I felt like both of my parents were waiting for some sort of tectonic shift to occur in front of them, we all resumed pursuing our menus quietly.

"So…what are you gonna get?" Bella asked, leaning into me and smiling widely. I already knew where she was headed with the line of inquiry. She was so goddamn cute it nearly killed me. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were the most beautiful glowing colour against the dim lighting and the flickering candles at the centre of the table. I spent a good deal longer than I should have just looking at her before I could even remember what it was that she asked me.

And I knew…_that_ was the unguarded, honest moment my parents were waiting for. The moment when the look in our eyes changed. The depth drew infinite and the love floated to the surface with practiced precision. It emanated unintentionally from both of us whether we were talking about beef wellington or our how much we loved each other. It was something that, when let free, pooled over the edges and anyone within five hundred feet could see it without even trying. It was soft and gentle, yet fierce and possessive. It consumed our eyes when we looked at each other.

And it was looking right at me waiting for my answer with a coy smile.

"Don't even," was all I murmured at her with a wink and a shake of my head. Smiles. Smiles were also different.

She huffed and shifted back toward her seat and scowled at her menu. "It's just that…I can't decide between the lamb and the lobster." She looked back at me with her huge, droopy doe-eyes and batted lashes.

I couldn't help the robust laughter that escaped me at the silly sight of her. She was so possessive over her own food until it suited her. And I never cared one way or the other. When I finally stopped laughing at her I simply arched an eyebrow in final question.

"What? You know you love lamb," she concluded with a slightly sheepish grin. I just returned to my scotch, clearly my meal had already been decided for me.

I didn't mind. We both knew I would get the lamb anyway. But the situation was comical.

Another hearty round of laughter, this time all four of us, erupted from the table when I ordered last with a resigned grin and told the waiter I was very much looking forward to having the lamb.

With all of our menus closed and returned, and a refreshed round of drinks in front of us, my mother smiled sweetly and leaned salaciously into the table toward Bella and I.

"Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the openness here. And just because you two have agreed to your father's absurdity…" she began, silencing the beginnings of a protest from her right with a very firm look before proceeding, "doesn't mean that this is going to become a night of invasive questions. But if you forgive me, I just have _one?" _ She was looking right at me, but I left her eyes to look into Bella's briefly to make sure she didn't mind.

"Yeah?" I hedged, looking back to my mom.

"Since when? I mean…how long has there been…_more_?"

I didn't mean to, I was raised better with impeccable table manners, but the absurdity of her question forced me to snort into my glass as I took a long pull of the caramel liquor. It warmed my esophagus and then my belly nicely. But her word choice almost made me cough it back up.

"What?" both her and my father questioned in unison, their brows knit together sternly. Clearly they took the question seriously.

Suddenly, I had the mental image of them lying in bed at night in the dark quietly pondering the mystery surrounding their youngest son and his "best friend". I felt bad for always guarding my relationship, even from them. The question had probably been nagging at them for years. Even my father, whom I openly discussed my relationship with, was unaware of when the shift began, and confused as to why we behaved the way we did.

Unfortunately for them, I had the feeling that even if I spent an eternity trying, I would never be able to properly explain exactly _why _it was that Bella and I felt compelled to be so protective over what we had. It was just something that we felt deep in our bones and knew in our hearts. The protective walls were slowly coming down the closer we got to beginning our real lives, but until they were nothing but rubble at our feet, and perhaps even afterward, words would just never adequately articulate our decisions. And that was going to have to be that.

"I…nothing, it's just…" I broke off shaking my head and wiping my mouth. I turned to face Bella for some support.

My look was pleading. I wasn't sure exactly what my parents wanted to hear from me, but Bella was so much better with the English language than I was, especially when put on the spot. That was always the precise moment I began to sputter like an idiot and not make any sense.

Bella furrowed her brows and shook her head adamantly. She slunk back into her chair with raised, defensive shoulders, removing herself from the conversation and my aid.

"Gee thanks. Enjoy your lobster," I grumbled, which only made her giggle kind of nervously at me.

Turning back to face my parents and their patiently awaiting eyes that were absorbing everything in front of them like sponges, I let my mind relax and just drift over my long history with the girl at my side so I could try and give them an adequate answer.

"More" was such a vague word with so many different interpretations, the bulk of which flustered me. I highly doubted my mother wanted a play-by-play of our first time making love…so…that left me with a much less tangible thing to draw an explanation from.

""Uhh…I don't know," I offered lamely, my eyes blurring into the flame of the candle at the centre of the table. "I think there's just always been _more_."

They were unimpressed. They scowled openly at me from their side of the table.

"What?" I screeched, my voice doing that annoying thing where it got all tight and high-pitched when I was under pressure and flailing for anything to cling to. "I'm not trying to be intentionally obtuse or irritating here. I just honestly don't think that I can answer such a vague question."

I alternated between looking at my mom and then my dad and then my mom again, wishing they could appreciate the depth of what I was trying to say. It was a lost cause. I could feel Bella's eyes on me. She reached over and rest her arm against the back of my shoulders between me and my chair, and twirled her fingers into my hair. She leaned comfortably against my side with her other hand against my bicep to balance herself. I sighed and looked at her. Her eyes were soft, deep, and encouraging. I briefly wondered if I was the only one who got lost in the infinate tunnels of green and gold flecks.

"There's just always been _more_ to us than what everybody else saw," I began confidently, finding the courage somewhere in her eyes to open up and answer the question with whatever honestly came into my mind first.

I tore myself from them to look back toward my parents to expand. "The first day of kindergarten, we hadn't been there for longer than an hour when Bella's teacher, Mrs. Campbell, came into my classroom to fetch me. Apparently, right after the parents all said their final good-byes, Bella ran out into the street after Renee to chase down her car, but it was already gone. She stubbornly refused to come back into the school after that. She was hysterical and wouldn't come any further than the curb. When I got to her she was sitting in a puddle crying into the tops of her knees. The white tights she was wearing were all torn and her knees were bloody. They sent me to try and convince her to come back into the classroom. It took me admitting that I was scared and sad and missed my 'mommy' just as much as she did to get her to even stand up and consider coming back. When Mrs. Campbell suggested that I be moved into the same classroom as Bella permanently she finally agreed to walk back into the building with her hand in mine. We were five.

"And we all know that I wasn't really scared. I was _way_ too excited to finally be old enough for real school like Emmett, but I didn't want Bella to feel alone in her fear, or whatever. So I pretended and she let me." I turned and winked at her. She already knew I was a big fat liar that day. "There's always been that kind of _more _I guess. It was just a matter of growing old enough to appreciate what it meant and how to protect it… Which we almost failed at once."

"Miserably," Bella added quietly.

During my little speech my hand had slipped over her knees where they were crossed in front her. I looked over to her and nodded appreciatively. "Miserable" was a fantastic description of our dark years apart.

Then, Bella surprised us all by adding to my declaration in a rare moment of unguarded emotion, the depths of which she didn't often enter with so many eyes on her.

"Or…when my mom died. And for some reason, all the adults thought I somehow couldn't hear them when they talked about how hard of a time I was having dealing with everything…whether or not I should be forced to speak to a professional, or sent somewhere..."

My mother went from amused to horrified instantly. "Oh, honey…"

"No, it's okay. I get it. I never cried and I refused to talk to anyone. That _should_ have worried you guys." She took a moment to look down at her lap and chew on her lip in thought. My hand on her knee tightened just enough for her to feel it. "But what no one knew was that every night I hid in the pantry with Edward and snotted all over his shirts for hours. He was the only one who ever shut up long enough to let me just…_be. _Everyone was always too busy talking quickly at me, overcompensating for me, to let me just get it out at my own pace. It jumbled everything in my head and then I panicked in front of everyone, knowing you were expecting some sort of reaction and watching me so closely. I hated it. Whereas Ed just sat there in the dark with me until I would eventually crawl over to him and bawl my friggin' eyes out, rambling incessantly. I don't think he ever even responded. Which was perfect."

Well…_that _should satisfy them. Jesus. The intensity of the conversation was getting to be a bit much. With my fingertips gently holding the far side of her jaw, I closed my eyes and leaned over to place a lingering kiss at her forehead, then turned to face my parents with a look that clearly indicated that particular line of conversation was over.

"Goodness," my mother sighed, tears threatening to spill over her eyelids and streak down her cheeks. Her hand was placed over her heart as if she could physically push back the pain. "I suppose that makes me feel better about the decision to bring you to the lake house with us that summer."

Bella laughed weakly, her nails scratching at the back of my head. "Definitely a good call, Esme."

_Laughing, muddy-faced kids trumps pantry-floor devastation._

"More drinks?" a cheerful, booming voice broke through all of our reveries. We all had to blink several times to clear the haze of memory and emotion before we replied "yes" eagerly in synchronization. The waiter chuckled at us and left promptly to fill our orders.

From there the night remained lively and pleasant. Bella and I interacted naturally. This, admittedly, was not that different than usual. The exceptions being the subtleties in the ways we regarded one another. We shared food with soft smiles and held hands or kissed cheeks. Bella's fingertips often found their way to that spot at the back of my head that almost made me purr, while my right arm stayed draped across the back of her chair most of the night.

I smiled a different smile than the ones my parents were used to seeing on my face–much like my eyes that lit up when looking at Bella unguarded. Bella brought out the joy in my existence and it radiated through me. Likewise, she giggled at practically everything I said, because in truth, we complemented one another's personalities perfectly. The easy smiles and laughter were as inherent as breathing.

At one point Bella pinched my side firmly when she noticed me glaring in the direction of a man twice our age who was overtly eyeing the tops of her thighs and the length of her legs as they peeked out from the skirting of the table where she had them crossed. Of course, her legs were fucking amazing. When you added heels to them I had a hard time remembering my name. But they were _my _amazing. And the current line of conversation at our table wasn't involving me all that much, so my mind and eyes were drifting lazily around the room as the scotch seeped its way further inside me. I couldn't help but notice the flush-cheeked, overweight buffoon oogling her. And it irritated me.

"What?" I growled at her, dodging her follow-up attempt to pinch me and laughing at her scowl.

She rolled her eyes. "Get over it," she mumbled and almost returned to her conversation with my mother. But then, another idea clearly got the better of her. She pushed out from the table a bit so she could better angle her chair toward me and glare. "Like I don't have to tolerate my own share of girls throwing themselves at you _all_ the time?" Colour crept up her cheeks that I knew had a little to do with the martinis and a lot to do with the topic.

"_Throwing themselves?" _I chuckled.

"Uhh...the lady at Tiffany?" Bella retorted with a tone that implied her example was obvious. She pulled her arm from where it had been resting against my leg to cross it over her chest and raise her eyebrows at me, challenging me to object.

"I"m sure I have no idea what you're talking about." In truth, I didn't. I couldn't recall anyone in the entire store flirting with me besides Bella the day we were there. Perhaps I had just been distracted.

Bella scoffed and uncrossed her arms, turning her chair back toward the table.

"Tiffany? As in…_Tiffany_, Tiffany?" my mother squeaked from across the table. The smile on her face was so large it looked painful.

"Oh, see…now look what you've done," I joked, poking Bella in the ribs in retaliation. It was obvious that wedding venues were suddenly lighting up behind my mother's eyelids as she blinked and grinned at us. For that reason, I carefully directed my next words at her with a firm tone. "We did _not_ buy anything."

"I beg to differ," Bella countered.

"Okay, earrings," I admitted, brushing my thumb over the studs at he front hole in her ears. "But that's it."

"So, tell me again why you don't pay your own rent, son?" my father jumped in with a broad smile on his face as he swirled his scotch around in his tumbler and winked at me in jest.

"Because plane tickets to Tempe and Tiffany earrings are fucking expensive." I laughed heartily, much to everyone's amusement...but Bella's, who smacked me against the shoulder in objection.

My father insisted on paying the final tab, joking that apparently I my expenses were tight as it was. Outside, while we waited to hail a cab, he kicked the toe of my black dress shoes.

"Aren't those mine?" he asked as a cab rolled up against the curb and we all instinctually took a step back to avoid the water sloshing up against his tires.

I looked down at the Versace boots he had loaned me a while back but then told me to keep. "Yeah, but you said I could have them. Why…do you want them back?" I held the door open for Bella as we all filed in, my father, again, taking the front seat. This time Bella graciously allowed me a window seat instead of forcing the tallest person in the group onto the backseat hump.

"God no! Keep them. Your sister…she means well, but…" he trailed off and I could just picture the eye roll and exasperated, yet amused, look on his face at my little sister and her attempts to force her fashion sense onto all of us. I was pretty much the only one who didn't fight her. Irritating as she was, she knew her shit.

I leaned forward and gave the driver the address to my apartment before settling back and snorting, lifting a foot to examine the faux croc leather. They weren't that bad.

"I kind of like them," I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.

My mother and Bella were ignoring us, having their own quiet conversation next to me. She reached over and took my hand as I placed my foot back on the floor and leaned against the cold window so I could kind of see my dad's face through the space between the door and the seat.

"Yes, but, you have always been a bit questionable, haven't you, Edward?" my father joked, laughing loudly at his own joke.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, _Dad_?" I retorted, shoving the back of his seat.

"Oh, nothing. Just that most teenage boys don't let their little sister's play dress-up with them. They go on dates now and then and bring girls home to meet their parents, that's all. You never did, so…"

My eyes were wide even if no one could see them through the black cab air. I stewed for less than a minute before piping up.

"Yeah, well… My girlfriend practically lived with us, you guys just weren't paying attention, so…" I let the sentence trail off the same way he had, leaving room for that idea to sink in fully. I scowled at the back of the headrest only half as angry as I was pretending to be, the other half was silently chuckling at my father's humour.

As I wrestled with the deadbolt on my front door, much to Bella's eternal amusement, my father placed his hand on my shoulder. "Hey. So, you know, I was only kidding back there, right? But you're right about something. Obviously, we should have been paying closer attention when you guys were kids. I'm sorry."

The front door gave way under my force and slammed open, hitting the wall behind it, which didn't matter because it had happened so many times that there was already a very hefty hole in the drywall. My father pushed the door shut, turned all the locks, and then eyed the hole, then me with disapproval.

"And…there goes my damage deposit," he muttered, shaking his head.

"Oh, that hole has been there for years," Bella replied nonchalantly as she threw her jacket and purse on the counter in the kitchen. She held onto the edge of it so she could bend over and unlace the straps of the black heels I had given her a few Christmases ago.

Three pairs of eyes regarded her with differing emotions. I happened to be picturing her in the heels and nothing else later that night after my parents returned to the hotel room they opted for instead of braving my roommate's disease-ridden mattresses. I planned to thoroughly make my claim on her fucking amazing legs crystal clear…repeatedly.

However, I was pretty sure my father was just amused at the unintentional revelation hidden inside what Bella said–that she had been coming to visit me in New York for years–while my mother just smiled. After three glasses of white wine, she was _definitely_ plotting seasonal floral arrangements and my messy hair on a toddler with Bella's complex brown eyes. She was a hopeless romantic like that. We all loved it about her.

We kicked off shoes and jackets and got comfortable in what few seating options the minimalistic apartment had. My parents sat on the edge of the couch while Bella's feet swang happily from the corner of the counter in the kitchen. It was practically another seat in the sitting area given it was only a few feet from the couch, which was to be expected in a five hundred and eight square foot apartment with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. There _was_ no real front room.

I poured two glasses of wine for my mother and Bella and then twisted the caps off two bottles of beer for me and my dad. Handing Bella her drink, I kissed her just beside her lips softly before passing by to sit across from my dad on the makeshift coffee table that was really a book chest. I handed him his beer with a nod and then picked up the conversation we were having where it left off–with my father feeling as if he owed me an apology, which I was determined to dissolve.

"Dad, you realise I was just being petulant and fighting you back for fun, right? There's no need to apologise or feel like you neglected us or anything. You didn't notice what was going on for several reasons, not the least of which being that we painstakingly hid everything worth knowing, like only teenagers can." I seriously hoped the thought didn't run too deep inside his mind, it would devastate me to think he questioned his and my mother's parenting capabilities.

He just nodded and took a swig of his beer, looking toward my mom with a soft smile. His hand rubbed slow circles against her back where she was seated beside him, angled toward Bella still pleasantly immersed in their own topics.

"Please, Dad. You _have_ to be kidding me. If I turn out to be a third of the father that you have always been, I'll consider my little bastard children lucky," I muddled into my beer bottle before drawing a long pull from it, not really making eye contact with my father as I professed that little piece of emotional testimony.

However awkward saying shit like that between two men always was, it didn't make it any less true. The man was an inspiring father. He was the best role model any little boy could ever possibly dream up. He worked hard yet always made it a priority to be at silly things like tee-ball games, track meets, Alice's seven gagillion ballet recitals, and Emmett's high school football games. He cheered the loudest and even coached various sports clubs a couple of times whenever he had the chance.

He organised his chaotic hospital rounds around our meal times when we were young, knowing how important it was for him to be there, and he drove us to school most mornings just so he could have that forty-two second chat with us on the way there. He was quick to raise a firm brow and have a word with us if we were ever disrespectful, which we rarely were, and he openly cherished my mother, setting a pristine example of what genuine devotion looked like and how it treated one another. I could count on one hand how many times I'd heard him raise his voice, and most of them involved Emmett in his twenties. Conversely, there were an infinite amount of memories to draw from which saw him hugging us, holding us, comforting us, and offering wise, gentle words of encouragement. There was no better father, ever. Period.

"Thank you," he choked out, looking thoroughly touched as he nodded quietly looking at his lap. He glanced at my mother and back to me. "Though, if your mother has anything to do with it, after tonight, I highly doubt that your children with be 'bastards'."

We both had a good laugh, drawing the attention of the women in the room. We shook our heads at them in polite dismissal, but continued chuckling together a good deal longer.

Hours later, we made plans to meet up in the morning for brunch before my parents caught their flight back home. Then, they said their goodnights with kisses to the tops of both mine and Bella's heads. I leaned against the open doorway, waving good-bye to them as the climbed down the stairs. Bella rest against me with my arm draped around her.

And then, we were alone.

The electric sense of urgency that being alone always gave us had slowly receded over the last several months. While we still weren't together every moment, we just felt more at ease with ourselves and that set the pace of our time spent together. It was a good development. More solid and sustainable.

Bella tidied up the sitting area while I rinsed out the wine glasses and placed them back in the cupboard above the refrigerator. Then, I threw my arm around her shoulders and directed us both toward the bedroom, forgetting all about the heels and my deviant fantasies surrounding them as they lay on the kitchen floor.

We chatted casually about the way the night had gone and the unexpected, though incredibly pleasant, turn it had taken at dinner as we slowly stripped out of our clothing. We climbed into bed in just our underwear and I raised my right arm into the air waiting for Bella to take up her familiar spot against my side with her head on my chest.

We continued talking for several more hours, our laughter jostling each other around as we stayed cuddled together until our eyes grew too heavy to hold open any longer. I had also abandoned any ideas I may have been harbouring about her legs and the various positions I would like to see them in. I would revisit them the next night, or perhaps in the morning…

My hand was made of lead as I lifted it to slowly turn Bella's face to meet mine in a slow kiss before we both nodded off for good.

"I love you," I mumbled tiredly against the smoothness of her lips, exhausted but meaning the words with reverence.

"I love you _more."_

_

* * *

_First of all: how hot is Edward's iron fist? *fantasizes*

Secondly: I know there are marginal amounts of caffeine in green tea so...deal with it. *sweet smile*

Most importantly: THANK YOU to Eliza41 et all whom via email and PM's helped me navigate the neighbourhoods of Baltimore. Ive never been there, or New York for that matter...so blame them if I screwed it up, mmmkay? hahahaha just kidding. Don't blame anyone. Its fan fiction, geez.

Does anyone laugh at my A/N's as much as I do writing them...? Sigh.

Kay, nevermind.

I'm sorry, but this story actually is winding down. There will probably be around 5 more chapters. I hope so far it's had everything you were looking for.

The best is yet to come...

Yeah, I just quoted Tay, because he's adorable.

Until next time...Me and Esme have some planning to do...

Wait, wha?

xox


	35. Enough Is Enough

I know...and I'm sorry. RL has been very...well..._real _lately.

But today I got my kid stuck in a swing wearing a snowsuit so...the hilarity that ensued made up for the rest.

If you follow me on Twitter you saw the picture, I'm legit still laughing. And if you don't follow me, well then you probably don't want me to bore you with my RL stories so...I'll piss off now.

Anyway, here is the update, better late than never, right?

I genuinely worry that it is all sex and no substance...

WAIT, WHAT?

*shrugs*

..._like you care._

XOX

* * *

"Hey bro, don't catch your skirt on fire on that oven," my roommate snorted at me before taking a long, dramatic pull from his beer. He was stretched out on the couch, feet up on the makeshift coffee table, watching a basketball game on _my_ flat screen. He smiled smugly to himself.

"Fuck you," I grumbled back, laying the hot cookie sheet, a new purchase from that morning, on the top of the stove so the cookies could cool off. He laughed obnoxiously and then yelled something incoherent at some player on the screen. "Besides, I'll be getting laid on Thursday while you sit on that couch watching sports, so…"

"Pfft. I fully intend to go downstairs around midnight and take advantage of some snivelling, lonely girl who didn't get a date and is drunk enough to come back here and fuck me," he announced waggling his eyebrows.

"Wow. Tremendous chivalry, man."

After that I was silent. It took a lot of concentration to jam popsicle sticks into the fresh cookies and then ice them. I used store-bought icing…my mother would have been horrified. But I didn't even want to imagine the razzing I would have gotten if I busted out a package of icing sugar and an egg beater in front of the guys. Not that I even knew _how _to make my own frosting...which maybe I did.

Premade sugar cookie dough, cream cheese frosting, little brown tubey thing of gel for the letters, and that was that. It was Valentine's Day and, keeping with our tradition for cheesy affairs, I was making Bella a bouquet of cookies and writing silly shit on each one like, "Be Mine" and "Love Me". I briefly contemplated writing dirty things on them, but decided against it.

I set aside a dozen frosted cookies for the bouquet and left the rest on a plate on the top of the stove which my idiot roommates would no doubt devour even if they thought I was less of a man for making them. Then, I brought the tray of frosted ones into my room where they could harden before I tied them together, not really needing to hear shit from the guys about the romantic little things I wrote on them.

Cheesy or not, that wasn't all I was getting Bella for the holiday. I was continually fighting the urge to do more, buy her more, and signify more somehow. So, I figured Valentine's Day would be the perfect opportunity to give in to that desire and buy her a little something extra.

I spent a month wandering around Manhattan, in and out of jewellery shops and designer boutiques looking for something though I had no idea what, but nothing ever reminded me of Bella. Bella wasn't flashy. She had her own style and it was pretty relaxed. She wore two sets of simple stud earrings in her ears every day and I knew she would never want to change them. Occasionally, she wore the little locket I had given her years ago with the pictures of us in it but otherwise only wore funkier costume necklaces. I didn't want to get her a ring, because a ring was…well...a _fucking ring. _ And it wasn't going to be _that _kind of ring so...I wasn't sure if that would work. I was confused. I was about to call my sister and beg for advice until the day I found myself in a shop on East Fifty-Seventh just off Fifth Ave.

The Chanel Store had been newly renovated and was having a grand re-opening. The gathering of black and silver balloons and two security guards at the doors caught my attention. I wandered in on my way home from a meeting with my advisor, and looked around the displays, noticing a lot more of the same old stuff. Everything was either too gaudy that I cringed just looking at it, or clearly designed for a girl much different than Bella. Finally, noticing a display with a watch and a cuff bracelet in the glass case that was pretty casual and looked more like something I could envision Bella actually wearing, I agreed to the offer of help when a sales associate approached me. I described Bella briefly and what I was looking for…which turned out to be a list of the type of things I _wasn't_ looking for, because that was easier.

"Oh lovely, she sounds wonderful," the lady cooed in an overly emphasized sales-woman sort of way that was completely plasticized. I just smiled and let her continue. "I do think you've found the right idea with this." She tapped a bright pink nail on the glass beside me. "This is a brand new line. _Very _contemporary yet understated in an elegant way."

She proceeded to tell me all about the line of jewellery and all of my customising options. It turned out that, as overly excited and generally unnerving as the lady was, she was right; the line of jewellery was exactly Bella's style. I had a ring made for her despite my previous misgivings.

I opted for the three-tier rather than the two-tier, only because the thicker band better suited Bella's edgier style even though her fingers were tiny. I also had diamonds inlaid where the lady said we could have either gemstones or simply more gold, because I wanted something a little more special, and while Bella wasn't flashy by nature, she still deserved pretty little things like that. I had a choice between either a black or white polished ceramic that would break up the bands of diamonds intermittently. I choose the black despite Bella's skin being so fair. I thought it would offset the white gold and diamonds brilliantly as well as balance Bella's style.

I made my customizing decisions easily, confident, even if logic tried to interfere. There was nothing in the world that I knew better than Isabella. And I knew she would adore this ring. In the end, it was a three-tiered band made up of alternating layers of eighteen-carat white gold mounted diamonds and black ceramic. Each tier was a series of delicate links. The end result was something that appeared very simple and subtle, yet was immensely beautiful.

The cost was astronomical, but it had been several years since I had gotten anything like that for Bella, and I knew the design was simple enough despite the small diamonds, that she would likely wear it every day. Plus, it scratched the itch to put a ring on her finger, even if it was going to be the wrong goddamn finger.

I tied a red ribbon around the popsicle-sticked cookie bouquet and, after thirty minutes of retying the bow until it was perfect, I set them in a box in my messenger bag and made my way to Baltimore. When I got off the train I found a florist and bought a huge red Mylar balloon in the shape of a heart with arms and legs and a goofy grin. I silently wondered just _how_ lame of a boyfriend the woman who sold it to me thought that I was. Whatever, she didn't have to understand our traditions, Bella and I did.

I placed the cookies in a vase and used the unwrapped ring box to anchor the balloon from floating to the ceiling of Bella's loft and then set everything on the centre of the coffee table in her living room.

It was early Thursday afternoon and Bella was still at the paper, but she would be getting home soon. I threw my laptop bag and jacket on the foot of the bed and jumped in the shower, feeling like I needed it after a long morning and several hours on the jam-packed midday train which I wasn't accustomed to taking.

I took my time, using my own shower stuff that I'd left in Bella's shower on a previous visit. When I exhausted the old home's small hot water tank I climbed out, roughly dried off, and then wrapped the towel around my waist and padded out into the bedroom. I needed to hurry up and get dressed so I could go downstairs and wait for Bella. Except…

Apparently, Bella had come home early. And slutty lingerie was _definitely _a cheesy Valentine's gift. And I no longer cared if anyone else appreciated our tradition, because I sure as hell did.

Though, to call anything on Bella "slutty" was blasphemous. Bella was elegant and modest. But she trusted me implicitly. Enough to venture out of her comfort zone and into a sheer, black teddy-thing that was basically a deep V right down her centre. There was a red satin halter tie and hearts at her collarbone with a matching sash around her hips tied into a flirty little bow at the side.

"Cheesy lingerie," she mumbled as an explanation, blushing despite being boldly sprawled out atop the bed with her bent legs open, feet planted on the mattress showing off the black heels I had given her a few years ago for Christmas. She was licking the frosting off one of the cookies pulled from the bouquet while she eyed me.

"Yeah. I get it," I choked out, still standing in bathroom doorway clutching the loose knot in the towel at my waist. I had to clear my throat that was suddenly very tight before I could push out any other words. "Believe me. _I get it._"

"Do you?" she purred with a cheeky grin that drew me closer. She nibbled on the hardened frosting that had dripped down the popsicle stem. "Frosted these a bit early, didn't you?" My face twisted in confusion. "It melts the frosting. Always so impatient, Edward…"

Her voice had grown taunting. I forgot all about my towel, letting it fall right to the floor, and quickly made my way to the bed. Within seconds Bella was flat on her back with my body covering hers. Because she was right–I was _always_ impatient.

I started at the place exposed just above the point of the V. First, I bit the thin skin sharply, but I quickly made amends by leaving a slow kiss over the mark. I groaned against her skin when I felt her nails scratch over my scalp and to my neck. I licked my lips before moving my kiss along the outside edge of the fabric and tasted the sweet honey flavour coating them.

The way I was crouched over Bella's lower body drove the tip of my dick against her ass cheeks where her legs opened. My hands supported myself on either side of her hips and my eyes moved slowly over her body so as to savour each inch before finally landing on hers in question about the sugary thing I tasted. She bit her lower lip and nodded to the bedside table where a small pink jar with a familiar looking brown plume sat.

Of course, the honey-flavoured body dust from the Museum of Sex shop. We purchased several little things that day, all of which we had played around with at some point over the last two years, but the body dust had yet to make an appearance–which was a tragedy, because it actually tasted nice. Also, it gave Bella's already flawless skin an alluring pearlescent sheen. And licking every last speck of it off of her was certainly my pleasure. I spent hours doing it.

The flimsy lingerie Bella was wearing had been shed, but hours later, we still weren't quite finished. We were enjoying each other, taking our time. We had a late reservation for dinner so we weren't worried about missing it. Once we were finally ready to connect, Bella reached down to pull off the heels. I quickly stopped her, shaking my head.

"Leave 'em," I said, the words barely coming out with any kind of coherence after not speaking anything beyond grunts and moans since I first crawled onto the bed.

"Yeah?"

"Fuck yeah," I wrapped my fingers around the slim stiletto, pulling her leg toward the opposite side of the bed. I forced her to twist sharply onto her side with one leg in the air anchored to my palm and hovering over my shoulder.

She yelped as I first manhandled her, considering I wasn't all that gentle about it, but the shallow sound quickly merged into a warm mewling as my free hand rode against her skin, up the entire underside of the leg I had suspended. Her skin was soft and cool and my fingers loved it. I rose up on my knees and pulled her closer to me with my other hand on her hip. My fingertips found her wet centre and slid inside. My eyes never left Bella's face.

She was curled on her side with her back to me and her hair a riot all around her, but her features were soft and relaxed the way that only complete trust and multiple orgasms could elicit. Her eyes were closed and I could clearly see every long eyelash where it rested against the rise of her cheek. Her neck was long and lean and I continued to stare as I released my fingers and teased her entrance only for a moment to spread around the moisture before pushing into her. Her mouth formed a beautiful little circle and gentle moans floated through. Her eyes didn't squeeze shut, but nor did they fly open.

Bella and I rarely did anything that could be classified as rough. We made love. And while it was often urgent and fierce, especially in the days of few visits, it was also slow and precise. We were somehow always gentle without trying to be. However, we had an unbelievable amount of faith in one another, which meant that on occasion, we could be a bit more demanding if we needed to be. For example, grabbing her by the heels and whipping her into a position where she was blind to my movements and entirely at my mercy–which, admittedly, was a huge fucking turn-on.

But her eyes…they fluttered yet never showed any signs of anxiety. That was why I had developed the habit over the years of watching them so intently while we made love. If I was going to own her, she deserved to own me right back. And she did. I was a slave to the sounds that came out of her every time I pulled out and then slammed back in no matter _what_ kind of sex we were having. Her leg began to shake, so I rest it on my right shoulder.

I broke from her eyes for a moment to turn my head and place a gentle kiss at the back of her calf, trying to balance the force with some softness. My fingers around the heel slid until they found her ankle and I held delicately, supporting the weight of her leg for her so she could relax and ride out her the orgasm that I could tell was lapping at her edges.

Leaning into her, I switched from firm thrusts to a slower grind, feeling myself take the first few steps out onto that familiar ledge again after having done so once already that afternoon. Bella's back arched against the mattress and her hand travelled up her body until she her fingers were pinching her own nipple and she was moaning incoherently.

The sight sent me over the edge but thank fuck she was already falling first. My movements sputtered in their rhythm and stalled with me pressed deep inside her, my hipbones digging into the flesh of her ass cheeks and my fingers tightened around her ankle.

"Fuck," I gasped and released every part of her I was clenched onto before falling forehead first against her belly. I felt her legs relax around me and one arm settle against my sweaty back.

I panted hard against her stomach. Bella's head continued to lie against the mattress as she tried to remember how to breathe properly as well. Then, the high-pitched, eardrum-bursting sound of her cell phone alarm sliced through the bubble of satiation surrounding us.

"Shit! You have no idea how much I hate that alarm, Bella." I growled into her skin, still hugging her hips to my chest, willing the demon noise to just go away and let us lay there for a few more minutes.

She giggled, shaking me against her. "It means we have forty-five minutes until our dinner reservation."

"Already? Ooops."

"I can be ready in time if you can," she whispered, still catching her breath, the tips of her fingers moving gently against my bare back.

Begrudgingly, I rose to my knees and scowled down at her. "I'm a guy. I can be ready in two minutes if I need to be."

"Well, that's just not fair, is it?" she whined and shoved me away so she could go have a shower.

I was so fucking spent I just lay there for five minutes, starfished out and completely nude on the top of her bed before finally dragging myself to join her. It was purely to wash up. My dick was taking a vacation after that marathon. Somewhere sunny with hammocks and loads of sun block. Though I _did_ appreciate the view in front of my as I rinsed off.

Once we were ready to go, we paused at the bottom of the stairs before leaving so I could unfasten the balloon from its anchor and give it to Bella. The ring fit her perfectly and looked beautiful on her finger. She cried and wrapped her arms around me, thanking me, which was sweet but so very unnecessary. I needed to give her something like that. I tried to explain to her that it was an entirely selfish gesture, but she didn't care. She said she was angry at herself for not getting me a "real" gift. Silly girl. I just kissed the tip of her nose and left it at that. Everything else as too overwhelming to even try and explain, and we were running late.

The restaurant wasn't that far away, so we opted to hop on a bus instead of calling a cab. The weather was freezing. Bella's dress hung off one shoulder and was quite short, which I really did appreciate, but still, I forced her to wear her heavy wool jacket because it was long and she would at least stand a chance at not catching pneumonia with it on.

The bus was jammed full of holiday goers out for the evening, but there were two seats free at the very front, which we took. Bella crossed her legs and the jacket split around her knees and fell to the seat, exposing just how long and sexy her legs could look. It was something so gratifying to know that I both noticed and loved the little scar on the side of her knee from where she sliced it open when we were kids swimming in the river behind my parent's house when she had an angry run in with a sharp rock. Only _I _knew that kind of shit.

I ran my hand over her knees and cupped them, resting it there comfortably. She angled herself toward me so she could adjust the knot of my tie which peeked out from under my jacket. The soft smile on her face was angelic. She had barely found time to blow-dry her hair and had pinned it up every which way in its natural, wavy mess. It was perfect as pieces hung down around her jaw and curls fell from the knot in the back.

I knew my eyes held something warm and special as they took her in while she scowled and gave up on straightening the knot. She pulled it out of my jacket and completely retied it herself with a chuckle. Just as she was tucking it back in I noticed an elderly couple climbing aboard the bus. They were standing while the bus pulled away from the curb again, holding onto the side railings with nowhere to sit.

Bella finished with my tie and I tapped her leg gently, indicating over her shoulder. We both stood and offered the couple our seats with kind smiles. The man held his wife's hand as she sat and then he took the seat beside her, thanking us. I held the railings in front of them and Bella slid her hands under my jacket to stabilize herself against me.

"Thank you," the elderly man said to me, with kind eyes.

"No problem."

"Tell you what," he surprised me by continuing, "I'll repay you with a joke." His voice was deep and wavering, the way that was common for men his age. He had a faint Irish lilt that I found instantly comforting for some reason.

"Oh Morey, the nice young kids don't want to hear you're old jokes," his wife chastised, slapping his arm with her mittens which she held in her hand. "Can't you see they're on a date? Leave them alone." She offered us a very sweet and apologetic smile. Beneath me, I heard Bella's soft giggle.

"No, no, we don't mind. Let's hear it," I encouraged Morey.

"Alright, then. So…a guy walks into a veterinarian's office and inquires about his old racehorse which the vet just examined. He says, 'So give it to me straight doc, how is she?' The vet says, 'Sir, your horse has two broken legs, a weak heart, and I fear she may be blind in one eye.' The man stumbled backward in horror and when he finally recovered from the shock he asked, 'Will I be able to race her?' The vet replied, 'Sure! You'll probably even win!'"

Even though the joke was predictable right from the beginning, both Bella and I chuckled energetically and thanked him. Morey's wife rolled her eyes and smiled to herself. I looked down at Bella and found her smiling up at me with an odd gleam in her eye. I kissed the top of her forehead with a wink.

"Now, let me tell you one," I said to Morey with a joking smile. "So, this guy walks into a bar…"

"Sorry but this is our stop," Bella interrupted politely, tugging gently on the lapel of my jacket. My joke was intentionally the oldest one in history. I knew it was our stop and I was just playing along with the old guy.

"Ahh…I guess you'll never know the way this one ends," I kidded.

Bella laced her fingers through mine after wishing Morey and his wife a very happy Valentine's Day. I repeated her wish and then helped push through the throng of people with my hand lightly on her hip, guiding her.

Just as I was stepping down to exit the front of the bus I heard Morey's shaky voice call out to me. "Oh…I think I can tell how this story will end," he said, nodding at Bella and me and then kissing the back of his wife's hand. I nodded and hopped from the bus.

We had a wonderful dinner. It never ceased to amaze me how much I continually enjoyed Bella's company. It was such a delicate balance to be so incredibly comfortable with someone yet never tire of their companionship. That was me and Bella. It would never change. And for some reason Morey's words and the sweet way he held his wife's hand on what was probably their fiftieth Valentine's Day stuck with me far beyond that one night.

Unfortunately, leaving Baltimore was becoming increasingly more difficult. Not because the days in between visits dragged any more than usual. They were still filled with an endless rotation of dusty books, laptop keys, glaring screens, headaches, stuffy libraries, and at night, cold, lonely bedsheets. But rather, there was a creeping sense of unrest approaching me and it was just enough to begin invading my mind, turning it on me. I knew Bella and I had to talk. It was obvious. Decisions were going to have to be made in the next couple of months, and they were not going to be easy ones. At the foundation of it all was me and my own stupid choices. Or rather, my lack of foresight which had me anchored to New York for two more years. I was an idiot. And I was stuck. And it was all my fault.

But I was going to be damned if Bella stalled herself any more than she already had. She deserved greatness and was a truly capable writer. She had a way of making even the most mundane sentence leap captivatingly off the page. Her writing was a direct reflection of everything that she was without ever being contrived. It was a subtle enchantment that lured you in when you weren't looking and then kept you spellbound. Happily.

So, it was time for her to begin her real career, and whether she would admit it or not, I was holding her back. I knew that. I appreciated everything she had done for us over the last year in more ways than I could ever put into words. I prayed that someday I would have the opportunity to repay her grand gesture with one of my own, because the time spent in our little house in Baltimore had only solidified everything that already existed in my heart and in my head–things that I didn't think could become any more solid. But it was nearing an end.

I loved Bella with every fibre of my being. She was _it_ for me. Nothing about our time together was ever dull, even when technically, it was. Sitting on opposite corners of the couch frantically typing away at different computer keyboards, was bliss. Just feeling her toes tucked under my legs while we worked, or hearing her muttering to herself as she organised her thoughts was soothing to me. She hummed all the time, which wasn't news to me, but I never tired of it. Or of the way her entire face lit up and she smiled at me whenever I spoke.

Bella just existing somewhere close to me was everything I would ever need in the world. Her presence in a room tethered me to my own, making everything around me that much more _real_. Thinking about our future together excited me. But it also made me anxious. There were so many things that I couldn't wait to have at last.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a choice. Waiting was the game we were stuck playing for a few more years. That was precisely what we had to talk about. A talk I rehearsed and plotted a million different ways in my head on the two and half hour train ride to Baltimore one evening in April.

I stalled. We got ready for dinner. Bella made lasagne and walked around the house in a pair of black lace cheeky underwear, a baggy white tank top gathered and tied out of her way at her hip, and fluffy charcoal grey slipper-boots that came up to her knees with little baubles hanging off them. Her hair was a in a sloppy ponytail and she hummed as she took the lasagne out of the oven, banging the door shut loudly with her knee.

I wanted to drop to mine right then and there and say "fuck it" to everything but my life with her. Instead, I stayed on the couch with my laptop overheating my knees and threw back the rest of my beer with my eyes closed trying to drive away the sweet and highly distracting thoughts in my mind.

"Wanna play Monopoly while we eat?"

I opened my eyes, set my empty bottle on the coffee table in front of me in what felt like slow-motion, and then turned sideways on the couch cushion so I could look back to the kitchen where the innocent sound of Bella's voice came from.

She was folding up a piece of tin foil that she'd pulled from the top of the casserole dish. Her head was cocked to the side a little while she regarded me, waiting for my reply. Her eyes were their usual huge, bright selves, and her smile was so warm it melted me.

"No. Not tonight, love." Her smile faltered and I felt like a supreme jackass for being the reason.

"C'mon. I promise to be a better trader," she bargained, the left side of her mouth turning up in another small attempt at a smile.

It was true. I _hated_ playing Monopoly with Isabella. She always sped around the board snatching up every property she landed on with no rhyme or reason. Then, when everything had been purchased, she refused to ever trade anything, even when the trade was so disproportionately balanced she would end up winning easily. It aggravated me to no end. That was the entire point of the game. Build up empires, challenge one another, see who falls first. Not hoard and torture.

But that had nothing to do with why I didn't want to play.

"First of all…no you won't and you know it. You'll still refuse to trade _anything, eve__r_. Secondly, that's not why I don't want to play. I just thought maybe we could talk about some stuff instead."

There must have been something in the unsure waver in my voice, or perhaps it was the way I stared at the woolly grey slippers on her feet and didn't look at her when I spoke, because she froze in place. Her fingers stopped fiddling with the foil, her feet stopped shuffling, and her breathing slowed. I looked up to find that her eyes were also stuck on mine.

"It's not a big deal or anything," I tried to assure her. The concerned look on her face was killing me. I wanted her to go back to bouncing and humming and wanting to play board games. "There's just some things I think we should talk about first, that's all. Well, that, _and _I pretty much hate playing Monopoly with you, Bella. Sorry."

I tried to laugh, it sounded forced. It was futile. Bella knew me better. She knew when something was on my mind and she knew when I was trying to downplay it just to make her feel better. I just hoped there was some solace in that.

She turned around without saying another word and began to set the table while the lasagne rested on the top of the stove. I quickly jumped to my feet to help her.

She was bent over the little yellow table laying out plates and silverware when I came up behind her. I heard her sniffle nervously. I stilled her hands with my own and noticed hers trembling, the forks clanging together in her small fist.

"Bella?"

She refused to turn around. I could tell from the stubborn set of her shoulders that she was scowling, fending off emotions and locking down. That was bullshit. She never did that with me. That kind of behaviour was reserved for everyone else, all the other people in her life that weren't _me. _

I pulled the remaining items from her grip, dropped them on the table with a clatter, and with my hands firmly at her hips, spun her around. Her face was set exactly as I knew it would be. She had her lower lip between her teeth and her brows kit together. She refused to meet my eyes, her own shining in the overhead light.

"Bella," I purred at her, bringing a steady palm to her cheek. I brushed the hair that had slipped from her ponytail off her skin and tucked it behind her ear, gently leaving a kiss where my fingers brushed. With my nose nuzzled against hers, I whispered to her. "Baby, come on? What the hell do you think I could want to talk about that could be worth all this?" I swiped carefully at her eyes. She closed them slowly as my fingertips neared and I brushed away the tears that finally fell.

"I don't know," she whispered feebly, looking at my chest and not my eyes. It was devastating. Where was the faith?

"Your job, Izzy." The old familiar nickname fell easily from my lips at a time of comforting. "That's all I wanna talk about. What you're going to do after this fellowship and where you should do it at. It's frustrating and I don't want to talk about it because we both know it's time for you to move back to Washington. And the idea of that breaks my fucking heart all over again…even if I knew this was coming."

Her eyes finally slid to meet mine. I looked into them even though it crossed and blurred my vision with my face so closely pressed against hers. I refused to move back.

"That's it?" she asked, sniffing and blinking rapidly. "Work?"

I nodded. "Work."

"Oh."

"What do you think I'm doing here?" I asked, feeling like we'd already had that conversation ages ago. I hated the universe for putting us in such devastating situations that it had to keep coming up. Or maybe I just hated myself. Either way, it killed me to think there was still any doubt left in Bella's heart.

"I don't know. Dinner and a board game I _thought_," she whined, wiping away her drying tears.

"No, Isabella," I growled, growing more agitated. "Here. This." I moved my hand from her hip to gesture in between us, tapping both of our stomachs.

"I…" She sighed and her breath blew out against my cheeks and through the loose strands of hair that hung over my forehead. "I just worry, you know? I mean…this thing, this…me moving here. I knew it would make or break us. We've practically been living together for the last seven months."

"Best seven months of my life," I interrupted.

"Exactly, but…I don't know. I guess we just haven't talked about it and so while I've been thinking how great it is, I wasn't sure if that's what you thought. I mean shit, Edward, half the time all we do is sit in silence and work or are too tired to do anything but sleep so, I don't know…I just…"

"Bella. That's perfect. This, us, _we_ are perfect. That's all I want. Just to be in a room with you. To breathe in the same air. To sleep in the same bed. To live in the same goddamn time zone. This is all I have ever wanted. We're busy now, and things are...I don't know... They won't always be this disjointed. But for now, this is perfect. Isn't it?"

For two people who have the potential to communicate so fluently together, we sure were good and fucking it up sometimes. And for all of our vows to be more careful with our relationship, there we were letting doubts and uncertainties float back in when we weren't looking.

"Bella, if you weren't sure how I was feeling about all of this, which by the way I have no fucking clue how you had any doubt, but whatever… If you needed confirmation, then you should have just asked me."

"Well, I wasn't uncertain until you got all serious and 'Bella, we need to talk' on me. Then, I don't know, I just…god, Edward! I'm still just a girl. My mind is going to do that sometimes. Even when I _know_ everything is perfect, if you get all quiet and brooding on me, sometimes my thoughts are going to spiral. So how about _you _share with _me _when something is on your mind and then there's no need for all the dramatics." She pressed herself further against the back of the table and crossed her arms over her chest, staring me down, eyebrows raised defiantly.

"Fair enough." I cracked a crooked smile and wrapped my arms around her. "You're absolutely right. I'm sorry. I've been thinking for a while now about what it is that you should or would want to do. I need to be better at voicing these things out loud. I _am_ sorry." I leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose. "And I'm sorry I worried you. But, Bella, come on?"

"I know," she conceded with a sheepish twist to her mouth, looking up at me from under her lashes. She kicked her slipper out at nothing, a blush dusting her cheeks. "I'm sorry, too. Stupid girl." She pointed to her own chest.

"Not stupid," I whispered, kissing her cheeks where the tears had fallen. I refrained from uttering aloud any number of the tacky thoughts that scampered through my mind about adding, _beautiful, special…maddening. _

We ate the lasagne, cleaned up, and then Bella excused herself to bed ahead of me while I was still finishing something up on my dissertation document. I quickly finished my thoughts half-assed, jotting down enough fragmented ideas that I would be able to remember what I was trying to say in the morning. I closed my computer and then stacked all the loose papers I had scattered over the coffee table on top of it.

Quickly, I climbed the stairs, not wanting Bella to be up there alone for too long. She had already kicked her slippers off and was under the sheets with her back to me, curled up in a ball facing the wall. The lights were all out.

I pulled my jeans off and climbed right into bed behind her. I lifted the sheets and hovered over her bent form, combing my fingers through her hair from scalp to tip slowly.

"You're on my side," I whispered in her ear, smiling to myself. I scooped up her hair and placed an easy, slow kiss behind her ear.

The apple of her cheek raised, and although she was still facing the wall opposite me, I could tell she was smiling. I dusted kisses down the column of her neck, closing my eyes and enjoying the feel of her soft skin under my lips, the tickle of her hair against my cheek, and the sound of her soft moan as I reached the dip where her shoulder began.

She tilted her head into the pillow further, elongating her neck and encouraging me to keep going. I considered myself forgiven. I smiled to myself as I sucked at the skin just above her collarbone and brought my hand to rest on her hip over the top of the sheets, kneading against the material into her body.

She sighed contentedly and lifted her hand to the thin strap of her tank top and slid it down her shoulder, pointing at her skin. I did as I was commanded. I dropped my lips to her shoulder again and dragged my tongue along her skin toward her arm, kissing gently along the way.

Bella rolled onto her back, her eyes closed but a beautiful smile on her lips. She jut her chin into the air and looked back toward the far wall, pointing to the place on the underside of her jaw where if I sucked the right way, the skin was so delicate it would darken instantly. And if I sucked while employing a few other tactics I had picked up over the years, I knew I could make her cum in under a minute. I stopped before I did either.

I was really enjoying the way she hummed and squirmed against me. She lifted the hem of her tank. Raising herself onto her elbows, she looked over at me with a sly smirk and tapped her belly, just above her belly button. I climbed over her hip to straddle her, scooting myself down so that I was almost lying atop her legs, grinning up at her. Bella laid her head back against the pillow and let her arms relax at her sides. Her eyes closed and she waited patiently, knowing I would do as I was told.

With my arms extended along her sides, I lay against her and brought my lips to her stomach. I closed my eyes enjoying the feel of her beneath me, relaxed, and so close, tickling the trembling skin with my kisses. I pushed the sides of her tank top up higher, over her bra, and cupped my fingers under her back, my thumbs digging into the supple sides of her breasts. I brought one knee up to steady myself as I moved up the centre of her chest, looking up under my lashes at her for more direction.

When I stopped kissing altogether her eyes fluttered open, slowly, blinking several times like pulling herself from an intense dream. I smiled to myself wondering where her mind was, but thrilled with the idea that wherever she was, I led her there.

She tapped a finger on the upper portion of the swell of one breast. I obediently licked the spot where she touched. Just once, waiting for more instruction.

I followed her around her entire upper body that way, as if led by a leash. She pointed, I obliged. Until she placed her entire palm flat against the top of my head. I looked up, her nipple still in my mouth, her top having been discarded a while ago. Curling my lips back away from my teeth, I bit the tip of the little pink bud without breaking my eye contact with her.

"Fuck," she breathed, looking down at me. I smiled but didn't release her. Instead, I bit again until she whimpered and drew her eyes shut. The line between pain and pleasure could be so, _so_ fine.

With her hand still pressed against the top of my head, she pushed. I felt her thighs loosen around me. I shuffled down her legs, wetting my lips, intentionally rubbing myself against her knee as I settled in a little lower. My dick was straining and the thin cotton of my boxers were barely containing it. It felt so fucking good to get a little friction. I had to resist the urge to either hump her leg like a dog or rip her panties off and plunge inside her without any further fanfare. My own pleasure was being torturously piqued and stalled repeatedly as I followed Bella around her own body.

But then her fingers ran through my hair, scratching lightly at my scalp and trailing over my bare shoulder. I looked up at her, and somehow, even in her state of undress, she was angelic and gentle. I loved her immensely. And everything, _everything _was worth waiting for. So I willed my dick to be patient.

I hooked my fingers around the sides of her panties and pulled them down halfway, continuing the sensuous lead around her body wherever she pointed. I kissed. I licked. I sucked and teased until she was frantically sitting up and shoving me to my back, snarling at me.

If I had a little more pride, I would have been embarrassed by the ferocity of the groan that left my mouth when her lips first wrapped around my cock. But fuck if it wasn't the warmest, wettest thing I'd ever felt. The sensation rippled through me and curled my toes and my lips against my teeth while I growled and tangled my fingers in her hair.

I hated being _that _guy–the guy who gripped a woman's hair and pulled and pushed her delicate head around while his dick was in her mouth. But I couldn't help it sometimes. It wasn't that I was guiding Bella. She knew my body as perfectly as I knew hers. I was just so fucking precariously tightrope-walking the line of release that my idle hands needed the sense of control.

After a minute she began teasing me the way I had her. The very tip of her tongue slid over my balls, under the entire length of my shaft, and swirled lightly around the head. I whimpered and squeezed my grip on her hair unintentionally, my hand shaking against the urge to push her back down. She licked the tip again and looked up at me innocently, trying to hide her smile.

_Such a fucking __tease sometimes… _

I panted with my teeth clenched together, so desperate. So fucking needy. It had been torture to not touch myself earlier while I was pleasuring her, but I resisted and focused all my energies on the places she pointed. Well, _most_ of my energies. I still humped her leg a little and palmed myself through my boxers whenever I had a free hand. But I was mostly focused on her. Now it was my fucking turn and I was two seconds from crying out in a real, tangible pain.

"I love that look," she whispered, annoyingly impervious to my misery.

"Huh?" I whined.

"That look. The one in your eyes right now. Total desperation." She bit her lip and looked down at me, then dragged her tongue up my length again before finishing her thought. "I just like knowing you want me so much."

As she spoke her lips moved against my straining dick. Tears were actually going to escape the creases of my eyes.

I growled and sat up. "Isabella, I want so fucking much you have no idea. I want to marry you. I want to see you knocked up with my kid. I want to love you for the rest of our lives. But right now, I just want to fuck the shit out of you."

I grabbed her wrists, threw her backward against the mattress and kicked out her thigh with my knee. Somewhere in all of that she gasped and moaned and squealed or something. Fuck if knew. My brain was a thick cloud of love and need. I buried myself so deep inside her I may have altered us both forever.

A tear really did push past my squinted eyes. I pulled her hips until she slammed forward into me again where I was leaning toward her on my knees. I felt her soft skin break a little under my fingernails but could not find the capacity anywhere inside of myself to ease my grip.

"Oh. Yes!" she shrieked as I pounded into her. Her hands flew over her head and scampered across the headboard and bed sheets, foraging desperately for something to gain purchase on while I roughly took everything I needed from her without hesitation.

She found nothing. Her back arched off the bed and I slid my hands under her, scooping her up. I swung my legs around, under Bella and off the edge of the bed so she could straddle me, never allowing my dick to slip from its warm home deep inside her body. Her fingers found my hair just as I knew they would. Somewhere in the less foggy areas of my subconscious, I was waiting to feel that tingle against my scalp. I loved it.

Her legs curled around my torso and locked behind me while I helped guide her up and down against me, inside, out, inside... My biceps burned and my ab muscles were wavering with the odd combination of build-up and fatigue that only love-making could offer.

I grew too tired to continue supporting her. I groaned into her shoulder, kissing and tasting. My head was heavy as it leaned against hers. The desperation fled but and in its choppy wake it left behind everything that was always there regardless. The adoration. The familiarity. The loyalty and intimacy. A devoted fusion stronger than anything we could or _would _ever try and fight. My best friend.

I wrapped my arms around her, encircling her and holding her tight against my chest. Too close to move, but at that point it didn't really matter anymore.

"I love you. So much." My eyes were too heavy to hold open. I squeezed them shut, clutching onto her with everything I had.

Bella hugged me back. "Oh, Edward. I love you too. You have no idea…""

We slowly found everything we would ever need somewhere inside one another. And it would always be enough.

* * *

There are new links for this chapter on my profile in case, like me, my description of that ring left you going, "HUH?"

And THANK YOU, to everyone reading, reviewing religiously, hounding, err..._loving_ me on Twitter (lol), and discussing this story in forums, facebook groups etc etc...

TRULY, THANK YOU. I cannot even begin to describe what your love means to me and how deeply your words affect me. Daily. I just...gah!

So yeh...thanks.

Also, I spent the last week writing the epilogues. Why? I don't know, they aren't ready for use for a while, but inspiration hit, and can I just tease you a bit and say...

AWWWWWWWWWW!

*ahem*

As you were.

LOVE ME!

Air

xox


	36. Home

Riiiggghht...so.

Someone commented that they think posting an update schedule has blocked me. To that I say, I have always been defiant and rebellious...go figure.

*fist in the air*

Also, I kind of got trapped reading a fic that was so profoundly poetic I literally drown in a sea of my own inadequacy and refused to open Microsoft Word for over a week. I can't even apologise for it, it was _that_ beautiful. It left me bawling for a plethora of reasons. Let's call it hormones and pretend it never happened, mmmkay?

Now. As for THIS fic. Yes, we are snowballing down the end rapidly, watch out for trees.

Also, we're backtracking into the end of the last chapter a bit here. I know it was, like, 3,784 weeks ago so, try to keep up.

*sinfully sweet smile*

xox

* * *

"Holding me back! Are you completely retarded, Edward? Why do you always do this?"

She grabbed her plate of lasagna and stood before I could react, let alone fully process what it was she was saying. The little teal dining chair crashed behind her to the floor. It reminded me of the time I stormed away from the dinner table in a similar fashion at Christmastime all those years ago. That was pretty much the only other time Bella had ever screamed at me and meant it. I did not want a repeat performance, so I was quick to jump up and go to her, nearly tripping and falling on my face as I leapt over the fallen chair, not bothering to right it.

Bella was scraping the remaining lasagna from her plate into the trash bin when I finished shaking my foot free from the stupid chair and rounded the corner into the kitchen. She dropped her dish in the sink so hard it took everything I had to not check over the edge to see if it broke. It wouldn't save the poor plate from its misdirected death and it would probably only irritate her more. I blinked and kept my eyes on her instead.

"Bella?"

Nothing.

Well. Not nothing. There was a lot of cupboard slamming and silverware throwing, huffing and growling. Meanwhile, I stood awkwardly at the entrance to the small kitchen shuffling my feet and not knowing what to do with my hands.

"Bella?" I tilted my head down to try and catch her eye.

She glared at me.

I swallowed. My throat was so tight I almost choked. My mouth opened and closed possibly four hundred times all to no avail. I couldn't think of a single goddamn thing to say.

_I'm sorry__. I love you. That's not how I meant it. Will you please calm down and talk to me?_

She deserved better than any of that shit. Besides, I knew better from growing up with the half-Tasmanian Devil Alice that you _never _asked a girl to "calm down" unless you were wearing body armour or had good medical insurance. So, I did nothing–which was significantly worse.

It was my fault she was so upset and yet…Bella and I never fought. I was unequipped at handling it.

I stood there staring at my feet like a moron when she whirled around on me, the pie knife from the lasagna tray in her hand. It was a coincidence and I tried not to eye it...or to laugh at the situation...but angry, knife-wielding Bella was kind of comical.

Although, it was also frightening considering she was overqualified at maiming herself with much blunter objects. I remained still. I was pretty sure neither laughing nor gawking would help my cause or the really fucking deep moat I had dug all around myself, so I mashed my lips together and waited, like a good little boyfriend.

The flame in her eye was waning. I knew that I offended her. I appreciated the situation for what it was and I planned to apologise profusely once I could think of how to better explain what I actually meant to say, but at that moment I knew she wasn't quite finished, so I was quiet while she continued.

"Look, I know I just had a mini-freak out when you said we needed to talk, but that's different. That's because you do..._this..._this shit, whatever it is you want to call it. This in-your-own-head bullshit and you don't even try to talk to me first. I try to be patient. I try so hard, Edward, you have no idea. But it's easier to sit back and wait for you to work it out on your own when I can tell it's something that doesn't directly involve me. And, I mean, Lord knows you have been patient enough with me whenever I needed it. But when it _is _about me. Fuck!"

She threw the knife into the sink. It clanged loudly against the dishes that were already there and I silently second-guessed the whole "she's calming down now" assessment. Her lower lip trembled and I was still just standing there–growing infinitely more inept as each minute passed.

"You need to share things with me. You need to talk to me. And you _need _to stop thinking that you know what's best for me without even speaking with me. That's not who you are. You're not _that _guy, Edward. Not with me. You talk to me. You trust me. You _need _me. So let me be that person for you. Don't deny me that, dammit."

I don't know if I had ever heard Bella swear so much in such a short amount of time. I felt wounded for being the reason. I must have looked wounded. I knew she had every right to be angry and say the things she was saying. As well, when Bella spoke, I listened attentively, because everything she ever said was important to me, whether she was ordering ice cream or crying her eyes out.

And there she was venting her legitimate frustrations about me, my behaviour, and my short-comings that I genuinely never realised affected her so much. She was upset over something entirely avoidable. That was why I found the whole situation so upsetting. I never wanted to cause Bella any grief. I had dedicated my entire life to just the opposite. I knew my brooding tendencies frustrated my loved ones at times, but to hear Bella yell, and swear, and slam things around...well that just wasn't who she was.

Unfortunately, I was still frozen in place. My mind raced, my heart sank, my mouth flapped like a fish, but I couldn't unite any of them into something coherent. Her eyes never left mine. And somehow I knew. I just felt it–that I did not need to explain anything. Bella knew me well enough. She knew me better than _I _knew me most of the time.

She saw the pain, she recognised it as disappointment in only myself. She saw the concern, and knew it was only for her. She saw the fear, and knew I would do anything, change anything, try anything, to make her life easier. She knew I always _heard _her words. And for that, I was eternally grateful.

"I'm going to bed, now," she whispered. For some reason, a full-strength voice would have seemed deafening.

She lay down the dish towel she had in her hand and then slowly made her way by me at the mouth of the tiny kitchen. She turned sideways to scoot past. My eyes hadn't left my feet as I processed more things than I could keep up with. Memories of all the times I isolated my own worries–internalizing them, warring over them alone, afraid to include her and cause her unnecessary anxiety. All the times I acted impetuously, believing I _did _know best.

How I ever thought any unilateral thoughts or actions were "best" in what was such a team relationship, I would never again understand. Clearly, I had been slowly hurting Bella. And knowing that devastated me.

Her fingers slid across my shoulder and into the hair at the nape of my neck. She pulled on me to balance herself as she rose up onto her tiptoes to kiss my cheek.

"I love you," she whispered before kissing the shell of my ear and then turning to go upstairs to bed.

I had a lot to do. I had a lot to think about and real changes to implement. I also needed to work on my paper, which was my plan for the evening before I opened my big mouth and fucked everything up. But my stupid degrees were already dictating every other facet of my life, and so that was all the control I was willing to allocate them. I hammered out a few key points into a blank Word document so I wouldn't forget them in the morning and then shut down my laptop and followed after Bella.

When I got to the top of the stairs I could see that she was all curled up in the fetal position facing the far wall…and on _my_ side of the bed. I put a lid on all the emotions and thoughts I was still trying to process, the promises I was trying to formulate for both myself and for Bella, and climbed across the bed to _very _slowly make amends to the woman I loved.

Slow merged into fast, which somehow drifted into rough, and then mercifully found its way back to the tender. That was just how Bella and I were. No matter how much ferocity we began making love with, in the end, we _made love_. We genuinely didn't know any other way. As I sat on the edge of the bed with her wrapped around me, clutching me, I never wanted the moment to end.

My mind scared me. I didn't know how to combat its nature. It was what it was, and what it always had been. It imploded on itself occasionally and I had always felt powerless to control that. But for Bella, for us, I would try. Or at the very least, I would involve her in the process, which I knew was all she was asking.

Bella was a big girl now. She was an adult. She was the most inspiring and courageous woman I had ever known. That was saying something given the competency of the women in my life.

Bella was the strongest. She was no longer the red-eyed little girl cowering in the corner of a kindergarten classroom, or the muddy-faced child who cried on my shoulder at night. She wasn't the awkward teen in sneakers and a hoodie, clutching a battered leather notebook in the hallways that was too afraid of being hurt to put herself out there for too many people.

She was the girl whom, once I saw the way the carnival lights sparkled off her dark hair at night as the Ferris wheel tangled it around her porcelain cheeks and she clutched my arm, giggling into my shoulder that night in Santa Monica, I would forever be a changed man. She sparked something inside me then and always. A fire. A fire I couldn't help feel because her own burned so brightly it was infectious. She was the most awe-inspiring combination of resilient and fragile that I would ever know.

She still looked at me with eyes full of the same wonderment and innocence she had the first time she whispered, "It should be you, Edward," but they meant something so much more now. She wasn't naïve. She was just pure and genuine right down to her soft, warm soul, and she always would be.

However, she had grown a great deal. I admired her. She always knew what she wanted and now she had the voice and the confidence to demand it. She was my partner. And while it may have once been inappropriate for me to unload my own stresses onto her fragile state, it was no longer necessary to shield her. Nothing about Bella was weak.

As it was, we were stuck together. Literally–blood, sweat, and tears pressed against one another, bound by her riotous hair and bed sheets. Her arms held around my neck, her legs clamped behind my back as she sat on my lap. We finished what felt like forever ago, but neither one of us had the will or desire to move.

My forehead rest against the top of her sticky shoulder and my chest shook against hers. I think I was the source of the trembling, but given our entanglement, it wasn't easy to know for sure. Her fingers ran through my hair and her head lifted as I placed several small kisses against her clammy skin.

"Don't be sorry," she whispered into the dark, feeling the repentance through my lips as they touched her. "Please."

I lifted my head, dragging my nose along her neck and jaw until my eyes were in front of hers, our foreheads pressed together. As she spoke, her lips brushed mine and I breathed her in. Her hands came up to clasp my jaw firmly.

"Edward, you've been my protector for as long as I can remember, and I still sometimes need you to be that. But other times I don't. It has to be confusing to realise the difference and it's a hard habit to break at all so...just...don't be sorry, okay? _Never _be sorry for everything that you have always been for me. You're the only reason I ever made it through anything. Ever. So…"

"Move in with me."

I was a bona fide idiot. My head was a whirlwind of chaos, reverence, and exhaustion. There were a hundred and one thoughts I needed to articulate in that moment. A hundred and one emotions I should have explained and approaches I should have taken or questions that needed to be asked. And _that _was what I blurted out. Apparently the marathon sex only further exacerbated my ineptitude.

It was too dark to see her face clearly, even being as close as we were. I was still inside her. My arms were shaking from the effort it took to hold her against me. And that was what I said.

_Move in with me__. _

It's not that it wasn't what I wanted. It was precisely what I was hoping for. I just should have been a little more graceful in my approach. I should have prefaced the idea with reasoning about how many job opportunities there could be for her in the city, and how two years spent building an impressive resume there would help open doors for any job she could ever possibly want in silly little Washington State. I should have told her that the thought of watching her get on an airplane without me ever again made me want to dissolve into the ground and cry until my soul was raw. That my heart and my will wouldn't survive another elongated separation…it just wouldn't.

I should have said that if she was so desperate to move back to Washington right away, I would happily pull out my bags and begin packing my own shit immediately, saying fuck it to everything I had been working for over the last seven years. I could transfer. I could make do. I had a lot of accreditation behind me and a last name that meant something in my chosen field, especially in Washington. I would survive.

Besides, what good were fancy degrees framed on a wall and a dark wood desk with a flat screen in my sky rise office if at the end of the day that was all I had? That wasn't the life I longed for. I would flip fucking burgers all day long if it meant that at night I came home to Isabella, a warm house with pictures of my family on the walls, and sticky-fingered children running to greet me at the door.

Visions of little girls dressed in tutus and fairy wings, clacking plastic princess slippers on the hardwood plagued my subconscious. Bella's complicated brown eyes with the soft green flecks on chubby faced babies. Handprints on stainless steel refrigerators. A tee ball coach ball cap. Sinking into the mattress at night from utter exhaustion, but doing it alongside the woman who literally tethered me to everything real in the world. Holidays with my mother's homemade tiramisu and Alice demanding we all gather around the living room to play charades.

That was our real life. That was all I had ever wanted, ever. And I should have explained that better instead of spitting out a few asinine words in haste, considering she had only _just _made the request for me to work on speaking my mind better.

"Okay."

Bella broke through my reverie with her gentle voice. A voice that seemingly didn't give a flying fuck about my endless justifications or meanderings or how I should have explained myself more articulately–she simply agreed. End of story.

I pulled back the only inch I could without shoving her off my lap and onto the floor, so I could try and focus on her features through the black of the room. The pale blue glow from her iPod dock just barely illuminated the line on the bridge of her nose and the dark circles that were her eyes. Otherwise, I saw nothing. No blush, no worry lines, no lip-biting. There were no obvious signs that she was unsure about what she had just agreed to.

"What?"

"I said 'okay', I'll move to New York. I mean...I've already started looking around on employment websites and stuff to see what's out there right now in the area as well as around here. I can ask Gary if he can help me or if he knows of anything, even outside of The Tribune Corp. I mean, Edward, the east coast has the most journalistic opportunities of anywhere else in the entire world short of a warzone. There has to be a million and one things I can do with myself for the next twenty-six months without 'holding' myself back."

I _did _see the dark slits that were her eyes narrow as she threw my own words back at me. She had every right. I didn't even flinch. I was on cloud-fucking-nine.

"I was just scared," I whispered, not missing a beat. It was both an explanation and an apology for earlier–whether she was asking for one or not. I was more than happy to let her in. There was nothing I would ever be embarrassed or ashamed to admit to Bella. I was just too overprotective for my own good.

"I know." Her fingers holding onto the back of my jaw softened and her head tilted to the side a little. I knew she was offering me a sweet little smile, even if I could barely see it.

"I just... I know you miss home and never really planned on being out here, so I thought, I mean, I figured..." I sighed and released one arm away from her back to drag my hand through my hair in frustration. The whole speaking your mind thing wasn't that easy when your mind was a chaotic black hole. "I don't know..."

Bella pressed her warm lips to mine to shut me up gently. "_You_ need to learn to stop over-thinking things. And _I_ need a shower," she said and slowly tried to unhook her legs from around my waist.

I steadied her as she stood, her joints looking like they may have fused in their previous position as they cracked and protested. She stretched and tried to work out the kinks, taking a stiff step toward the bathroom only to wobble and groan.

"Or maybe a bath," she joked as she flipped on the bathroom light, stabilizing herself against the door frame with a tired giggle.

I blinked against the abrupt light change, and when I reopened my eyes the second time she was gone, having disappeared around the corner into the bathroom. I heard her rummage around for a moment and then the bathtub began to fill. When I got in there she was opening and closing cupboards looking for something.

I leaned against the door jamb watching her in the narrow space, bent over in front of me inspecting the drawers underneath the sink, completely naked. I cocked my head to the side appreciatively, the corner of my mouth lifting in a devilish smirk. My toes twitched with the desire to poke at her.

"Uhm...what are you doing?" I sing-songed playfully at her.

"Looking for something," she replied with her head inside a cabinet.

"Clearly," I chuckled.

"You'd think I'd have a candle of some sort in here somewhere, wouldn't you?" she grumbled, giving up and shutting the final cupboard. She stood and leaned against the vanity, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling downward at nothing in particular.

Her ass cheeks were all cute and squished against the countertop and fully visible from the mirror behind her. Her hair was a teased and wild mess. I couldn't help further giggling at the sight of her. Her eyes met mine and she narrowed them, and then kicked her leg out at my shin.

"Ow!" I joked with a wink, the little kick not really hurting and thankful it was just my shin given everything that was on display and vulnerable. "Why do you have a flashlight in here?" I reached beside her to pull the little black thing from a drawer.

"I don't know," she shrugged and stepped over the tub, filled with sweet smelling bubbles, and turned off the faucet.

She sunk into the water, steam rising off the top, and moaned in appreciation of the heat as it saturated her weary limbs. I flicked off the bathroom light, leaving the room pitch dark, and then pushed the button on the flashlight.

"What are you doing?"

"Making a candle." I shrugged and stood the flashlight on end in the far corner of the vanity. The white light was sharp where it reflected off the mirror and hit the ceiling, but on the other side of the room where the bathtub was, it was just enough to dimly cast shadows against the piles of bubbles and ring Bella's cheeks and wet shoulders with a pale glow.

"Ahh. Perfect." She grinned over at me and scooted forward, giving me room to climb in behind her.

The water was amazing. The scent was sweet and reminded me of all things Bella. The bubbles raised high above the waterline, shining iridescent. She settled against my chest in between my legs, the tops of her knees poking out in the gaps between the bubbles. I wrapped my arms around her stomach and stretched my palms flat against her with my chin on the top of her head. She wriggled a little against me, getting more comfortable.

We lay there in the odd lighting and in silence for a long time, enjoying the warmth, the contact, and the sweet scent swirling in the air around us. Rolling my head to the side and looking down at Bella, I could see her eyes closed and her face relaxed, but I knew from her breathing that she wasn't quite asleep even though it had to be close to two in the morning.

"Do you ever just feel like we're caught in a hamster wheel or something?" I asked quietly, not wanting to disrupt the serenity too much, but making a real effort to include her inside the bedlam that was my perpetually overactive mind. "I don't know…that's just how I feel. Like everyone else is going forward and were just stuck running in circles waiting for the planets to align or something."

Her head lolled to the side as she listened. Her fingers wiggled against the outside of my thighs under the water, settling underneath my knees, hugging them to her.

"I do feel like that sometimes, for sure. But, I don't know, sometimes I also just feel like maybe we've been spoiled. Like we're just impatient and we want everything all at once."

"Obviously." Despite the warmth and my improved mood, I sulked behind her.

"It makes sense," she continued. "I mean, who wouldn't want it all right now when we've known for so long what we want…and _who_?"

I made some sort of snorting noise behind her. My eyes closed and I hugged her more firmly. She relaxed against me again and it was silent a while longer before she spoke up.

"It's not a wheel though. It's one of those little hamster ball-thingys. Because, technically, we go places. We've both accomplished and experienced a lot, priceless things, really. It's just that there are so many _other _things that are somehow always out of reach. Like we're trapped running around in one of those silly clear balls, looking at it all but not able to have it…yet."

Again, she proved herself much more capable with analogies and the English language in general than me. That was the perfect description. A stupid fucking hamster ball.

That night, in the tub with our eyes closed holding each other as the warm water held us, we came to some agreements about the main issue at hand. Bella was going to stay on the east coast, regardless of the specifics about where and what she was going to be able to do for work. And as frustrated as I was that we couldn't have everything all at once, knowing that she was staying near me, possibly even moving in with me, was enough to allay me.

After that night, Bella began trolling want-ads and casually mentioning to her employers at The Sun that she was hoping to stay in town a little longer and would need a job. She knew the paper she was currently at was already at full staff and that once her fellowship ended the likelihood of her being offered a full-time position there was low, however, she poked around anyway.

When it came time for her final review for the fellowship, her direct advisors mentioned that there was a position open in one of the company's smaller papers in Hartford, Connecticut. That weekend over dinner, I congratulated her on the amazing written evaluation and signed recommendations she was given from the man who originally hired her, who was also in charge of The Tribune Company's corporate relations. We discussed the idea of the job in Hartford, but ultimately, Bella knew it wasn't for her and I agreed. It just wasn't worth the ease of the transfer and the name attached to the newspaper compared to all the drawbacks.

Bella would have to move, and not in with me in Manhattan, because at best that train ride would have been well over two hours each way. She would have to move to Connecticut and start over completely, just for a small morning publication which happened to have a big name behind it. Thus, she continued her job hunt elsewhere.

There appeared to be an abundance of positions available with the Washington Times, but she grumbled about working with a narrow-minded and conservative publication. I just smiled and nodded whenever she went off on some tangent about how she couldn't see herself working there, given that I knew absolutely nothing about the different publications on the east coast or their political and social associations. I _did _however, think she was incredibly cute when she got all fired up and her words collided together as she stamped around in her tank top and underwear.

In the end, Bella submitted what seemed like a thousand resumes to various publications scattered across the area, both big and small. I was not-so-secretly hoping she would land something in either New York or Philadelphia, because then it would make sense to move in with me. I was selfish like that. I also began slowly shifting things around in my closet to make room for more of her stuff.

While Bella scoured on-line job-postings and finished off her work with the Sun, I continued with my dissertation. I had a meeting with my thesis committee In late April which easily could have gone better for me. It left me frustrated and exhausted just thinkingabout the wasted hours and work as well as the time and headaches involved with recomposing the trouble areas they wanted me to redo. One thing was for sure, Columbia University _did not_ simply hand out their doctorial degrees to just anyone, they actually wanted me to slave for it.

Before I knew it, summer was upon us. I had been dreading the summer for months since our discussion about what Bella would do once she completed her fellowship. She was aching to go home and visit and I knew it was inevitable, not to mention that she deserved the break.

She begged me to come spend the summer in Washington with her. Unfortunately, after my train wreck meeting with my advisors I knew that it just wasn't feasible if I was going to try and rework such large portions of my thesis and still maintain my original timeline for completion. In Washington, I would inevitably be distracted and fall into a lazy pattern of doing nothing but enjoying my family and lounging on my parents' sofa all day while entertaining myself with Bella all night. As appealing as the idea was, I had to prioritize a little. It helped knowing Bella would be returning to me in what was still sure to be eleven very long weeks.

Bella left at the beginning of June. She was still unsure of to what and where she would be returning in September, but she had it narrowed down a little. She had several promising leads and before she left she interviewed with several different publications for a variety of positions.

Saying goodbye to her in the airport again definitely made the top five shittiest moments of my life.

The plan was for me to take a week off at the end of August to come home, hang out for a bit, celebrate Olivia's second birthday with my family, and mercifully retrieve Bella. Still, the separation was going to be horrendous. It took everything I had not to punch the pillar that always seemed to mock me in terminal eight as I walked away slowly breaking inside.

By the end of June, my birthday, all it took was one little phone call at midnight my time and a sultry-voiced birthday serenade followed by a round of cute giggles for me to slip back into the old state of auto-pilot depression.

It turned out to be one of the stickiest, balmiest, most miserable summers I had ever spent in New York. My clothes stuck to me in places that no fabric had any business sticking. Sweat poured down my forehead and back before I even finished drying myself off every time I stepped out of the shower, making the task nearly impossible. I longed for the cool, tepid summers of Washington–my parents' lush, grassy backyard with the pool and the double chaise lounges and mom's sun tea steeping on the garden ledge at the back of the yard. The breeze would billow around me, ruffling my hair and smelling green and refreshing but, more than anything, I longed for the girl who would be lying on that chaise with me.

She was probably there reading a book at that very moment as I was being slowly tortured to death on the east coast. Well, it was Bella, so odds were she would be lying on the grass _next _to the five thousand dollar luxury outdoor furnishing and not actually on it. That was just Bella. She loved the feel of grass in between her toes.

Meanwhile, I didn't remember the last time I had even as much as seen a large patch of grass in the sweltering city. Nonetheless, I had to keep trucking along. It had been a grueling seven years since we first parted ways after high school, but we were finally settling into a comfortable relationship with a mutually recognised future. We knew what we were and what we wanted to be. We knew what we could live with, and more importantly, what we could notlive without. It was leaps and bounds of progress given that several years ago we weren't even speaking to one another. Now, we were on the downhill stretch to getting everything that we ever wanted and smashing that goddamn hamster wheel once and for all.

I just had to survive the summer alone first.

Mid July, the day started out the same way they all did that summer. I woke up, stuck to the damp sheets and glowered ferociously at the inadequate fan wedged in the open window that rattled more than it blew. It wobbled precariously on the sill laughing at me as I swore and peeled myself out of bed.

Long strands of hair stuck to my forehead and temples and my boxer briefs were twisted and annoying the fuck out of me. I showered, cursed as I tried in vain to get dry, got dressed in clean clothes that were going to be rank in less time than it took to get to the coffee shop and purchase my first cup of coffee, and then left my bedroom in a foul mood.

I grumbled a '"good morning" to my roommates who were hovering over a computer screen on the couch like teenagers, more than likely watching porn of some sort. I grabbed a stale doughnut from the open box on the countertop even though I couldn't remember precisely how many days ago they were bought, and headed out with my laptop slung over my shoulder. I confirmed as I walked by the guys that it was in fact porn they were looking at.

_Jesus Christ, it is too early for that shit, _I thought as I pulled the door shut behind me and headed toward the stairs, trying to block out the images I had just scene.

It never made any sense to me how two perfectly straight guys could feel comfortable practically circle jerking each other over internet porn. Still, my dick pulsed in rebuttal, longing to be manhandled by someone who wasn't me for a change. I had gotten awfully accustomed to regular sex over the last year spent with Bella in the same time zone as myself, and the eleven weeks were slowly trickling by, killing me in more ways than just the one.

The nights were long. And sticky. More often than not I was just too tired and miserable by the time I got home to do anything but beat my head against a pillow and grumble at the fan. I was certainly never in the mood to jerk off in a stuffy bathroom.

I always spoke to Bella before I officially rolled over and shut my eyes for the night, but the conversations were kept short so we wouldn't run up our cell bills any more than necessary. We just needed to hear each other's voices in our ear at least once a day. It was amazing how cathartic something so simple could be.

The sun blistered as I walked up to the library where I would spend the rest of my day and what would probably turn into the better part of my evening, feeling sweat drip down small of my back. At least the library was air conditioned. Not that I had a choice as to where I wanted to spend my day. Trying to cram a PhD program into five years when it usually took students six to seven to complete definitely had its drawbacks. So, I poured myself into my dissertation with a frenzied desperation while I was alone all summer. What the fuck else was I going to do?

Luckily, at the end of the day, I knew why I was working so hard. It made the late nights of nothing but hours spent at the library with a stiff neck from being hunched inhumanly over books and my laptop that much more tolerable. Even though my body was fatigued, my neck and back throbbed, and my heart trembled with absence, I could handle it. Or at least, that was what I kept telling myself.

Walking back to my car as the sun slipped down over the city's skyline, my body ached and my heart hurt. I paused and looked out at the pink sunset spattered with black buildings as the sun washed out their details, melting them into a smooth blackness as it glowed behind them.

I was so tired. I was so lonely. It had only been about seven weeks since Bella left, and technically, I would be going home and seeing her in just over four. But in that moment–that sticky, tired, head-pounding, back-aching, pink-skied moment of utter despondency–I needed her, and four weeks may as well have been four years. I wasn't going to make it. I was done trying.

Without thinking, I pulled out my cell and surfed around on a few websites, completely obliterating my cell bill with its shitty data plan and relegating all my abbreviated phone calls with Bella futile. I stood in the middle of the abandoned parking lot with not a car in sight, nor had I passed a living person as I exited the building. No one in the city was stupid enough to waste such a beautiful summer evening, complete with a light breeze and firecracker-pink skies, inside the dark library.

A few minutes later, armed with the information I needed, I dialled the number that had always been my cell phone's preset number one.

"Hello?" Bella breathed into the phone, sounding winded. Her voice shook with movement as she panted into the receiver.

"And what exactly are _you_ doing, Isabella?" I scolded, my tone a little accusatory but mostly kidding, as my mind ran with the idea of what could cause Bella to be out of breath.

I was exhausted and miserable and grumpy.

"Uhm...hello to you too, darling," she chastised me in a light voice, completely appreciating the strain she knew I was under and never holding it against me. I truly didn't deserve her.

"Sorry, I was only joking," I sighed into the phone, raking my fingers through my hair and off my forehead. I was way overdue for a haircut, more so than usual.

"I know." I could practically envision her smiling and my fingers twitched with the very real need to lace themselves through hers and breathe in her sweet scent. The idea was enough to both shatter my heart and make me smile.

"There's a flight that leaves Sea-Tac in 5 hours. Be on it." My voice held such pain that I almost felt bad for calling and forcing her to shoulder some of the burden. But of course, it was her pain too.

"Okay," she whispered, no further explanation necessary. I needed her. She needed me. Everything else could be sorted out later.

I hung up and drove straight to a strip mall to hurry and get a haircut before they closed at nine. However, as I walked toward the salon, I passed an urban fare market and quickly decided my hair was superfluous. I went in and bought everything I would need to treat Bella to a picnic on the rooftop of my apartment building the next evening after it had cooled down for the night, inspired by how truly surreal the skyline and the surrounding area was against that backdrop of fluorescent pink.

I didn't sleep at all, even though Bella's plane wasn't going to arrive until after nine in the morning. Instead I paced, and lay on my bed listening to music loud enough to try and drown out my thoughts. Unfortunately, that did nothing but make me even more anxious. I just missed her so fucking much. I ached for her. I tried to work on my thesis but gave up after an hour of staring at the white screen with blurred streaks of black across it as my eyes glossed over and my body hummed with anticipation.

Centuries later, it was finally time to leave for the airport. I took a cab and bit my tongue about the route he chose in the middle of morning chaos because _that _was how happy I was.

Nothing else mattered the moment Bella rounded the corner of her terminal and saw me. She dropped her bag and ran as fast as she could in her little flip flops. I winced a little inside watching her, hoping she wouldn't trip over the flimsy rubber things and fall. She didn't.

Her deep blue summer dress fluttered around her thighs and my heart sang. I opened my arms and she jumped right into them. It was exactly where she was always meant to be. I buried my face into her neck, inhaling the sweet comfort of sugary coconut. She wrapped her legs around me and I clung to her, squeezing her probably a little to tight, but she wasn't complaining

We stood like that for a long time, probably looking like a cheesy movie re-enactment. I didn't care. My heart felt at home, the location had fuck all to do with it. Home was everything I held in my arms in that moment.

"Hi," she eventually whispered into my ear, her face still buried against me.

I laughed, feeling light for the first time in almost two months. "Hi."

"Your hair is a disaster," she giggled, running her fingers through it, gripping it as her little elbows dug into my shoulder blades. I welcomed the feeling.

"I know," I smirked at her because she was right, it was a fucking wreck. I may have not even combed it before I left the house, I couldn't remember. Neither of us really cared.

Eventually, we made our way to a cab and across the city to my apartment where Bella could change. Then we were going to walk to a little cafe that we loved by the house to grab a late breakfast and relax over waffles that nearly rivalled the ones at that place she had taken me to in Arizona. It didn't matter _what _we did over the next four days, it only mattered that we did it together. Our life wasn't about filling the days with the most exhilarating activities or posh events–just the buzz that hummed through my body whenever she was near.

My roommates snickered and greeted her when she came trailing in behind me. They were used to her visits. They were probably the only two people in the world who knew me personally and knew the sordid extent of my relationship with my "best friend". It was kind of a given considering how many times loud slams and screams had been heard coming from my bedroom when she visited. It had become something they incessantly mocked me about, but usually not too badly in front of Bella. She belonged in that tiny, stuffy apartment just as much as the rest of us.

We spent the next several days wrapped around one another to a severe degree, regardless of what we were doing. Walking down the sidewalk hand in hand as the heat radiated off the cement and through our bodies. Intertwined in bed, slipping against one another bathed in sweat and lust in the most beautiful and delicious way. Sprawled out on a picnic blanket pretending we could see the stars above despite the lights from the city, wine glasses nearby. It was a perfect weekend. It was precisely what I needed, minus the fact that it was destined to end too quickly. I hated the familiar, nagging tear at the back of my mind over the impending separation, wishing like hell we were entirely over it.

The day before Bella had to leave, we gathered my roommates and some buddies and headed over to the weathered baseball diamond across the street from our apartment building. We had a mishmash of busted up mitts and an ancient wooden bat in tow as we ran across the busy street to play in weather that was definitely too hot for any outdoor activity. We didn't care.

We split into teams, Bella and I on separate teams because our friends were assholes like that, and we played for hours. We enjoyed the camaraderie and good-natured rivalry, everyone laughing and goading on their opponents mercilessly. Bella and I were screamed at by both teams on several occasions for abandoning our posts to sneak in some soft-core porn against the make-shift dugouts on the sidelines.

Bella came up to bat and I eyed her from my place as shortstop. Sometimes her beauty was staggering even in the most unorthodox circumstances. Her short denim cut-offs were filthy and flipped up once at their shredded hems, making them even shorter. Her long legs were caked in dirt covered streaks of sweat and she wore my old tee ball t-shirt, the one she pilfered from my mother's attic several years ago and liked to sleep in.

She wore tattered All-Star sneakers and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that swished against her shoulders as she walked up to the plate, dust being kicked up with each footfall. The sun was beginning to sink in the sky and the dirt field was bathed in gold. I smiled, mostly to myself, as I watched her.

The pitch came at her and she swung hard, the bat connecting perfectly with the heavy softball and cracking loudly. For a second, I looked to see where the ball went until I realised it hadn't gone anywhere. The bat snapped where it met the ball, tossing Bella forward awkwardly from the force. She caught herself on one hand as it hit the dust near the home plate, but the upper half of the splintered bat she was still holding in her right hand hit the ground before her, and she toppled against it, driving its splintered edge into her bicep. I ran to her with inhuman speed, seeing blood running down her arm and mottling the dirt at her feet.

"I'm okay," she laughed, shaking her head, baffled at the extent of her clumsy misfortune.

"No you're not," I growled at her, reaching for her arm to clamp down with my thumb and forefinger to slow the blood loss.

"Yeah, okay," she answered as if I had been asking a question when I wasn't. It was obvious that she was going to need medical attention.

She looked down at her arm, a jagged cut running about three inches along her muscle, the tip of the wound looking very deep and dirty. My buddies had all gathered around, a mixture of poking fun at the woman they knew to be a great klutz and murmuring ideas on how to stop the bleeding. Someone handed me a bandana to wrap around her arm. It was filthy and sopping wet with sweat. I looked back at my idiotic roommate and shook my head.

"What," he muttered, shrugging.

I decided it would have to do until the cut could be properly disinfected and dressed. I wrapped it around her arm as delicately as I could before having to cinch it tighter to tie off. I used the bottom of my own tee shirt to wipe away the trickles of blood that flowed down her arm and had gathered in the crook of her elbow. I wiped my bloody palms on the ass of my jeans then kissed her softly at the temple, muttering under my breath.

By the time I had her cleaned up enough to be moved almost everyone had dispersed back to the game. It wasn't actually as bad of a wound as I initially thought–it was just dirty and had a few points that would probably need stitches. There was nothing they could do anyway.

I shouted to my roommates that I was going to walk Bella up the street to the urgent care clinic to get it treated, given that a flat full of idiot guys didn't really have much by way of first aid essentials. Though, with Bella visiting so regularly, I was baffled as to how the fuck that had not become an issue sooner. I guess there weren't many ways to injure oneself during sex or while eating, which was more or less all we did during our stolen weekends together.

I sat, drumming my fingers impatiently against my knees as I waited in the uncomfortable orange chair in the urgent care waiting room. Bella had gone in with the nurse to get her arm disinfected and stitched up. I wanted to go in with her to hold her hand or something, but the nurse refused to allow me in. Bella shrugged and followed her, completely unphased by her magnetism for harm.

Much to the growing annoyance of the lady beside me, I continued to tap my toes in an alternating beat and drum my fingertips against the side of my chair, anxious to see Bella in one piece again and hating that she was being stitched up somewhere back there without me. She hated needles and was probably going to require an anesthetic before the sutures. I tried not to think about her digging her teeth into her lower lip and wincing with pain as she looked away, but every minute was possibly more painful for me than it was for her.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket becoming a very welcome distraction. I yanked it out and saw it was Emmett. Figuring it would be a while before Bella returned, I decided it was safe to answer.

"Hey."

"Hey buddy, you busy gettin' all smart and stuff?" he joked.

"Nope, just twiddling my thumbs in a clinic waiting room while a certain someone gets a very gnarly wound stitched up," I laughed, although technically, it wasn't a joke.

He laughed loudly back at me and I smiled into the phone. Bella wasn't the only one I missed while I was away at school. And with her near me it was a lot easier to remember that my heart longed for everyone else just as badly.

"Dude, honestly. What the fuck is with you and klutzy women? Do you find that helpless shit a turn-on or something?" He was still laughing boisterously.

"Huh?" Did he honestly not realise there had only ever been _one _klutzy woman in my life...ever? "Whatever. Where are _you_?" I asked, wondering how he could have missed the obvious fact that Bella left for New York three days ago.

"Denver. Work sent me out here to check on some shit. Pissed Rosalie the hell off. We were supposed to be spending the weekend at her grandmother's cabin in Port Orford for her eightieth birthday."

"Oh, I'm sure you were really bummed about missing that one," I joked, imagining Emmett serving small slices of sheet cake to a bunch of elderly people while Rosalie watched him intently to make sure he was smiling civilly.

"Pffft! I fucking volunteered to come out here and pretended to be pissed off about it. But if you ever tell Rosalie that I will kill you, you little fucker."

I laughed. Fuck, I loved him.

"So...is your little girlfriend fixed up yet?" he asked and I still wasn't sure if he realised who he was asking about.

_Note to self:__ have desperately serious talk with Emmett in four weeks. _

"I never said it was a girl, you know," I retorted.

"Edward, with you, it's _always _a girl." _So deluded_. "So, what happened anyway?" he asked curiously.

"I don't know…a softball injury," I muttered, laughing a little under my breath, the comedy in the incident being far more apparent once Bella was being properly attended to.

"How the fuck...? You know what, never mind," Em trailed of, chuckling. "Listen, I have to get back to work. I just called to tell you myself before Allie or mom called and ruined all the fun. I just got off the phone with Rose after she sent me a very unexpected text message with a picture of a little white stick with two pink lines. I nearly fucking choked on my meatball sandwich."

"Again," I spat into the phone, not meaning to be offensive but being caught off guard completely. Olivia wasn't even two yet for crying out loud. But really, I was so proud, and excited, and fiercely jealous.

"Yeah, well, you know. Once you have one..." he replied.

No. I didn't know.

"Well, congratulations. And good fucking luck with that," I joked, but it was obvious by my excited tone just how happy I was for my brother. I loved Olivia fervently and couldn't wait to see the family expand, even if I had nothing to do with it.

"Thanks. Okay, I have to go. Good luck with the girlfriend," he mumbled into the phone sounding suddenly very distracted.

I had always wanted to have _that _conversation in person with him, however, if it hadn't been for how preoccupied he was with being called back to whatever lame conference he was at, and knowing that Bella would be finished any minute, I would have had that conversation right then over the phone. I hated the ambiguity surrounding everything I said to my brother, especially when there was no need for it any longer. But I let him go with another round of congratulations and a promise to talk more in a few weeks.

Bella came out with a white gauzy bandage around her bicep and eyes that looked a little crazed. We settled everything we needed to at the front desk and I took her home. I wished we had the option of grabbing her things from my overcrowded apartment and going back to her place in Baltimore for a few days, but her landlord agreed to allow us to sublet the house over the summer to cover the cost of the rent, so that wasn't an option.

We forwent all things sustenance after that and retreated into my bedroom. I had no way of knowing if my roommates had ever filtered back in or not, the sound of the CD we had playing on repeat drowned out almost everything including one another. For some reason, a reason that seemed to be seeded deep inside ourselves, the night was beyond words. I just need to feel, to consume, to own and submit all at once. The combination of the weight of everything I carried throughout the day, the summer, the year together, an entire lifetime together, was converging into something unspoken yet that screamed all at once. Bella not only seemed to be feeling precisely the same way, but she was also a little dopey from the pain killers and antibiotics they gave her at the clinic.

The air was so thick in the shut off bedroom that our skin stuck to the sheets. The fan droned but was unheard and unfelt. I melted into her as she lay beneath me, naked, trusting, wounded, and fixed. I hated the bandage on her arm for all it could have been and was at the same time. I hated how short and yet how unbearably long life felt sometimes. I hated every moment spent not as I was spending that one. And for that very reason, I loved the one I was living in.

We'd made love hours ago. The sun had set. The CD had repeated itself upwards of seven times had I been paying attention to something that trivial. Still, we barely moved. I covered her with my naked body and never once felt vulnerable or exposed. I just felt like me.

Her thighs lay open, embracing me as I pressed my cheek to the skin just below her navel. My eyes closed and I enjoyed the sweet and tender way her fingers pushed through my thick hair. It was natural and only Bella's fingers could feel precisely that way.

My mind wandered. It strolled languidly down paths without reason. My hands cupped Bella's soft hips and I turned to press a kiss to the skin warmed by my cheek. Looking up at her from under the splotchy blanket of my own mottled lashes, I could see the shadows cast by the eerie yellowish gleam from the streetlamp outside as her own eyelashes lay flatly against the rise in her cheek. I could tell by the pattern of her slow, yet controlled breath that she was awake, coupled with the steady movement against my scalp.

"Rose is pregnant again," I murmured against her.

They were the first real words that had been spoken in hours. Her eyes fluttered open and found mine. My cheek was once again pressed to her belly but my left hand had drifted from the comfort of her hip to hover just beside where my eyes lay. My thumb rubbed deep circles into her flesh as I followed my own mind, sharing the path of it with her aloud the way I had always been meant to do. The way she wanted me to.

"What? When did you hear that?"

"Emmett called to tell me when you were in getting stitched up."

"Ahh," was all she said, and she needn't have said anymore. I understood. She understood. I kissed the warm, flat surface of her skin again. Her hand stilled in my hair but closed around my head to hold me tighter. Her eyes slid shut again.

A while later I climbed up her naked body and settled beside her, hugging her to me. She whined as I rearranged myself and disturbed her as she was nearly drifted off to sleep.

"Why are you moving? I like you down there," she grumbled, sliding her arm over my chest and curling against me.

"That's because you're greedy," I growled in jest, arching an eyebrow salaciously at her.

"Not like that." She made a faint movement as if to elbow me, but it fell short as her heavy limb barely made it off the bed.

"I know."

"Hamster ball?" she asked randomly, though I knew precisely what she meant.

"Hamster ball," I confirmed. "Why don't you just let me knock you up already?" I kissed her forehead gently and wondered if she knew how very little I was kidding.

She giggled. "I think you should probably marry me first."

"Pfft. Semantics." I held her tighter and combed my fingers through her hair.

"Maybe tell my dad about us?"

"Like he hasn't already threatened my life over you."

"Really?" She raised her head off my chest and looked down at me. "When?"

"Uhh…a million times since my third birthday. Including a year ago when he corned me at my parents' house and made a bunch of awkward and half-hearted threats."

The corners of her mouth turned down a little in contemplation and then she smirked at me and laid her head back to the little dip at the centre of my chest made just for her.

"Well at the very least you should buy me a ring first."

"I already did." I tapped the Chanel ring she hadn't taken off except to shower since Valentine's Day.

"A _different _kind of ring, Edward," she whisper-scolded. I smiled to myself.

_Not gonna happen…_

"Sorry, I'm broke." I pinched playfully at her ribs.

She shook with her giggles and I pulled a sheet over her shoulders just for comfort, it certainly wasn't cold in the muggy room.

"I love you, Isabella," I murmured into the top of her head, kissing it as we both drifted off again, sweet smiles on our lips.

"I love you too."

And for the moment, that was all there was.

* * *

MOTHER FUCKERS!

*kicks something*

WHY do they always end chapters like that?

Honestly, they always do. I _try_ to change it, I write other things, I force shit, I swear I do...

But, in the end, it is always obviously forced.

And so...we're yet again left sighing over their cute romantic little perfection. The assholes. The least they could do is share.

I don't know when the next chapter will post. Soon I hope. But I'm making a tiny human here, be patient lol

Love me!

Air

~xox~


	37. Sweet Revelations

Alright, so...some of you caught that...

My bad. It appears that I was just as caught off guard as the characters in this story by a certain little something, thus ensuring their reactions are 100 percent genuine...given their puppet master got embarrassingly tangled in the strings.

If you're unsure what I am referencing, it has to do with the antibiotics in the last chapter...and Bella being on birth control.

*head desk*

There, just had to do that one last time before I purged myself of the erroneous and cheesy blunder. Moving on.

Thank you to everyone who is still with me on this little love story, as well as the stragglers we have swept up along the way. Who knew, hey?

Your reviews and kind words make me smile and fist pump in ways I truly should be humiliated by, but alas...I am not.

xox

* * *

I took a cab from Port Angeles, even though the driver at the airport balked when I first opened the back door and told him my destination. Clearly, he was unaware that I had spent the better part of the last seven years in New York City; smelly cab drivers and their complaints hardly even registered with me.

I knew precisely where I was going. I only hoped as the cab sped along the farm road curves into the back entrance of Forks that everyone had stuck to their usual Wednesday morning plans and would be where I expected them to be. I was three days early. On a whim, twelve hours earlier, I threw a few things into a duffle bag, grabbed my printed out reservations for my Saturday evening flight, and went to the airport ticket counter to plead my way onto an earlier plane. No one knew I was there. I was literally vibrating from the inside out with excitement at the idea of seeing everyone again, especially my favourite little ballerina.

I paid the cab, tipped him really well knowing he was pissed about the long, unpaid ride back into Port Angeles, and slung my duffle bag over my shoulder. I carefully retrieved the little pink gift bag overflowing with cream and hot pink tissue paper from its safe place on the floor of the back seat. There was a pretty pink Gerber Daisy I bought at the Seattle airport florist poked into the bag top, smiling brightly. I closed the cab door and made my way across the parking lot with a painfully large smile on my face.

I knew the little community centre building well, both Alice and Bella had taken many different classes there over the years. Emmett even tried his hand at martial arts once, only to be gently assured his bulk may be better suited for the high school football team instead. And while neither of us would ever admit it in public, it was the very same building where, when I was ten and Emmett twelve, our mother forced us through eight weeks of ballroom dancing classes with her.

Fifteen years later, not much had changed with the little brown-shingled building. The rose bushes were the same, the smell inside the musty lobby was the same, and the cracked Formica flooring was the same. I could see the instructor, a local high school girl no doubt, from the front doors where I stood for a moment and dropped my duffle bag, knowing it would be just fine unattended to.

The lilting sway of music poured out of the open double doors from the back they used as the dance studio. I stood for a moment smiling to myself and saw several little bodies dressed in various shades of pink toddle across the floor in front of the doorway. Like a magnet, I was pulled to the room by a force greater than myself. I placed my open palm on the metal door and watched with slightly blurry eyes.

I saw her right away. Corn silk pigtails poking up into the air, pale pink hair bows tied around them, pink tights, and a big puffy tutu that was probably just designed for dress-up and not actual dance class. She was my exact definition of a little piece of perfection.

The kids were all gathered around in a circle…or what was supposed to be a circle but was actually just a dozen little bodies in a haphazard bunch. "Okay kids, now show me your 'happy feet'," the instructor sang and pushed the heels of her feet together and then popped apart her toes in what I knew to be "first position".

A dozen wobble-legged toddlers tried to copy her, some successfully, others tottering until their puffy bottoms met the gray Formica. Warm chuckles could be heard from the row of folding aluminum chairs that was strung along the wall just inside the doorway. I couldn't see them, but I had suffered through enough of Alice's ballet classes in the past to know they were there and they were filled with adoring parents and grandparents with tender smiles on their faces and eyes filled with love, much as mine were.

"Like dat, Papaw?" Olivia asked excitedly, turning to face the row of chairs with her little feet precariously opened, beaming a beautiful, infectious little smile at wherever my father must have been sitting. I heard his deep chuckle and hands clapping and Olivia spun back to face the instructor and promptly toppled over. My father's laughter doubled and beside it, I heard my mother's soft, stifled giggle.

My heart flooded.

I needed this.

So fucking much.

Every Tuesday afternoon my mother drove into Seattle to retrieve Olivia so she could spend the night with her and my father. They then took her to ballet class the following morning in Forks and then out for ice cream for lunch much to Rosalie's continued protests, because that was apparently what grandparent's did. Later, my brother and Rosalie would come to get Olivia and stay for Wednesday night dinner. It had been a year long tradition–a year that I had missed out on almost entirely except the few weeks I was home the previous summer. I was immensely grateful to be there again.

I didn't want to disrupt the class or cause a scene, and I knew they were wrapping up soon, so I stood and watched, leaning against the wall just outside the doorway for the last ten minutes. Olivia giggled profusely. She apparently loved to twirl until she fell over, regardless of what the instructor was asking her to do.

Toe taps. _Twirl. _Star-jumps. _Twirl. _Arm waves. _Twirl._

My cheeks actually hurt from all the smiling I was doing. My brother was one lucky asshole. She looked just like Rosalie. But she bubbled like Alice. She had my brothers blue eyes.

"Okay, kids," the instructor cooed warmly after changing the song on the portable CD player in the corner of the room to If You're Happy and You Know It. "Do you know what time it is now?" she asked.

Immediately, a dozen chubby little hands obediently piled on top of their heads and their perpetually buzzing bodies stilled perfectly as they yelled in unison, "Stickers!" The instructor went around and told each little kid how well they did, calling them by name and then placing a little sticker on their patient hands atop their head.

"Look, Papaw! A wadybug!" Olivia squealed as she barrelled to the row of chairs and two pairs of eagerly awaiting arms.

I moved into the doorway and shuffled to the side a bit to make room for the people exiting while I waited. A few of the mothers I recognised from my high school. One noticed me as well and smiled as she pretended to listen to the rattling coming from her own two year old as she zipped up her sweater up and guided her toward the door. I smiled back politely and said hello.

"Eddie!" a little voice shrieked from across the room, causing both of my parents to look up. My fathers eyes shined at me and my mothers face scrunched in confusion but her delicate little hand fell to over her heart in a gesture that was so sweet and so _my mother_ that it made me smile even wider. And then Olivia crashed into my knees and I almost fell over the top of her.

"Present?" she asked as she grabbed for the pink bag.

"Uhm, hello to you to, Greedy," I kidded, scooping her up and leaving the gift bag on the floor, much to her dismay. She leaned out of my arms toward the floor for it. So I dipped my face down to interrupt hers and look in her eyes. "'_Hello, _Uncle Edward I missed you so much,' is what I believe you meant to say." I squeezed her as she squirmed but she giggled heartily as I blew a raspberry on her shoulder. It took one second after that to have her in a complete fit of heart warming giggles as my parents gathered their things and strode over to us.

"I thought you weren't coming until Saturday?" my father asked as he approached.

"Does no one know how to say "hello" properly in this town anymore or what?" I joked. I directed the rest of my sentence to the squirming little thing in my arms. "In _my_ day I'd get quite the stern look or whack on the back of the head if I were that rude, you know? What is it that you are going to get now?"

"Ice cream!" Olivia shouted and successfully wriggled her way to the floor where she was able to rip the flower from the gift bag before I could snatch it up. She plopped down to the floor sniffing it dramatically in such a cute way we all three watched and laughed for a second before looking back up. She was appeased for the moment.

"Yeah, I just kind of went to the airport in the middle of the night to see if I could sneak onto an earlier flight. I was too excited to get here that I wasn't doing anything productive anyways, and I was just miserable. So I figured I could be equally unproductive here but happy at least, so…" I shrugged, feeling my cheeks grow a little warm. It was probably from the stuffy, un-air-conditioned room.

"Aww, we missed you too, baby." My mom pulled me into a bear hug and my dad smiled at me and nodded from over her shoulder.

"Present, now?" Olivia asked, standing and pulling at my arm.

I shook my head at her. "At the ice cream shop. Besides, you haven't even said 'hello' to me yet." I pretended to pout, pushing my lower lip out dramatically and crossing my arms. She giggled and jumped at my feet for me to lift her. I handed the gift bag to my mom and scooped her up as she smothered my face in kisses and I tickled her sides.

There was something incredibly cathartic about a warm, squiggling little body giggling in your arms.

"Nu-uh!" I scolded, carrying Olivia and smacking my mother's hand out of the gift bag as we made our way to the car. Olivia burst into more giggles at Nana being scolded.

"What? It's not for _me?_" my mother joked and looked abashed. I shook my head and tried to buckle Olivia into her seat in the back of the car. I had to give up after two minutes and let my mom do it. Apparently, you need a PhD in engineering in order to operate the stupid contraption.

Over ice cream I finally gave Olive the gift bag. The pretty tissue paper may have held her interest just as much as what was inside. That is, until she opened it. The little pale pink jewellery box was shaped like a heart and when opened had a pretty ballerina on her toes twirling to music from Swan Lake. I filled it with a pair of really long dress-up pearls and a little plastic, heart-shaped hand mirror. She was in heaven the rest of the time in the booth at the ice cream shop between her vanilla ice cream and her pearls and the dancing "balaweena".

As we were packing up to leave, I went to the counter and ordered two vanilla cookie dough ice creams in take out containers. I had them stick two thick caramel wafers dipped in rich dark chocolate in the centre of one of the containers. Not mine.

I asked my parents drop me off at Bella's house and told them we would be home in a few hours for dinner with my brother and Rosalie. My father was already turning down K Street anyway. Apparently, I was rather predictable.

The ice cream was just beginning to pool a little around the rims of the to-go containers as I climbed the familiar steps to the house that had always been like a second home to me.

The door was open. _Shocking._ Radiohead was blaring from somewhere upstairs so I knew Charlie wasn't home, not that I had noticed his cruiser outside anyway.

I was just about to start taking the stairs to Bella's bedroom when I heard something clang from the kitchen. I cleared the living room in less than four long strides and cleared my throat behind where she stood at the sink doing dishes.

The sun beamed through the open screen door at the side of the kitchen and through the window behind the sink. Her hair shone in that auburn way and her bare feet made something inside me turn molten for some reason. Her head nodding and horrendous singing along with the music from upstairs made me laugh before I could even get her attention properly.

She spun around shrieking with a metal spaghetti ladle in her hand, dropping it to the floor to send soap suds flying across the linoleum. She covered her chest in the same way my mother had. I just laughed.

"Jesus," she squealed. "What the hell…?"

"You know, the manners in the town have seriously gone to shit," I joked, shaking my head and smiling my warm, crooked smile at her.

I set the covered to go containers on the rim of the sink behind her and wrapped her in the tightest bear hug I could without crushing her. She screeched in my ear from the force but I felt her legs wrap around the back of my calves as I lifted her off the ground and she giggled into my chest.

"Seriously, though, Edward, what the hell?" she pulled back to look at me, smiling. The sun made the green flecks around the insides of her eyes more obvious. I doubted anyone but me ever noticed. I adored them.

"Thought you might like some ice cream," I murmured, placing a quick kiss at her lips before reaching back behind her to grab the containers and head back toward the front door.

"Wait. What?" she called after me, still slightly stunned. I could hear her bare feet padding against the kitchen floor as she dropped what she was doing to run after me. She was so goddamn cute that the molten threatened to break free and drown the both of us. "What kind of ice cream?"

She was slipping her feet into a pair of rubber flip flops and grabbing a lightweight zip up hoodie as she spoke, using my shoulder for balance. I nodded to her truck keys hanging from the hook by the door and she grabbed those too, following me down the porch steps again.

"You'll just have to wait to see, won't you," I kidded, balancing one container atop the other and prying open the groaning door to the behemoth.

"Where are we going?" she asked, giggling, the entire situation catching up with her.

I arched an eyebrow salaciously at her.

"The ice cream would melt," she chided, but her cheeks flushed and her eyelids drooped a little in a telltale sign that she liked the idea. My grin stretched impossibly wider. "Are you going to answer _any _of my questions, Edward?"

"I missed you so much I couldn't breathe. Chocolate chip cookie dough. The soccer field."

All the features of her face and body softened and her eyes melted. "I missed you too." She leaned across the bench seat to kiss me. The old truck didn't have any cup holders so both of my hands were occupied. It was interesting kissing her like that, not being able to touch her but wanting to. She pulled back and I pouted at her. "But chocolate chip cookie dough is _your _favourite ice cream, not mine," she grumbled playfully.

"Yeah, well, I'm selfish," I joked with a shrug. "_However," _I balanced one container between my knees and pried open the top to reveal the dark chocolate, caramel truffle cream filled wafers stacked on top of the vanilla ice cream. Her eyes lit up.

She fired up the beastly vehicle and backed out of the driveway, headed toward our soccer field. I grabbed a wafer cookie and offered it to her. Instead of taking a cute little bite, she snapped the whole thing out of my fingers and smirked at me.

"Like I was going to eat any of it," I joked, laughing at her. The windows were down and her hair was flying every where. She was beautiful. She frowned at me, remembering that too much chocolate made my head hurt.

She took a bite of the cookie, hummed in appreciation, and then held the remaining half in between her lips as she parked the truck in the gravel parking lot just beside the soccer field. The chocolate on the outside of the cookie had begun to melt and drip down her bottom lip.

I grabbed the two ice cream containers and hopped out of the truck and made my way to her side. I opened the door for her and she helped herself down using my arm to steady herself. Her body slid down the narrow space I allowed between me and the vehicle. She smiled around the cookie, finishing it.

Before she had a chance to lick the chocolate from her lips mine were pressed against hers. Clearly, I had caught her by surprise again and she giggled into my mouth as my tongue darted out to drag against the chocolate slowly. I could feel her smile beneath me. I sucked her lip into my mouth and rid it of any lingering mess. Her fingers slid under my polo shirt and along my sides, just above my shorts, tickling the sensitive skin. Once her hands met in the back she pulled me closer and deepened the kiss. Holding the ice cream, I still could not use my own hands on her. There was something both painful and exciting about that.

After making out like teenagers for way too long, pushed against the side of her truck in the park in the middle of the day like we never were able to actually _do_ as teenagers, we broke apart and shuffled our way toward the swings without another word. We both just knew that was where we would want to sit to eat the very melted ice cream.

We sat and our feet pushed through the dry sawdust to move the swings a few inches as we dug into the dessert, first tipping the melted bit into our mouths to drink.

"So," Bella began in a tone that was so obviously a forced attempt at casual that she had my attention immediately. She twisted her swing toward me with her tippy toes dug into the saw dust, having a big bite of ice cream and taking forever to swallow, holding me in suspense. "I've been waiting to run this by you in person because I want to gauge your reaction with my own eyes. You've had far too much experience at covering up your own emotions for me."

Yup. Definitely had my attention.

I raised my eyebrows at her insinuation that I would lie about whatever it was she was about to "run" by me. My spoon was stalled, full of dripping ice cream that splattered on my khaki shorts halfway to my mouth. I quickly ate it and buried the spoon back into the container of ice cream, waiting to hear the rest of what she had to say.

"It didn't really dawn on me until a week after I got home, but they gave me a shot of Keflin in the clinic after I hurt my arm and sent me home with two weeks worth of antibiotics."

She paused and waited for something to click in my brain. It didn't. I just continued to side-eye her as her face scrunched up in frustration.

"Antibiotics interfere with birth control."

_Oh!_

"I'm not, obviously, if I was you'd know," she was quick to add. "But I was the one all hopped up on pain meds that night and not thinking clearly. _You _on the other hand…" she trailed off and looked at her feet as they shuffled, kicking through the sawdust. "You went off on some rant about wanting to knock me up, so…?"

I shook my head at her when she looked back up at me. "Not a chance, Bella."

"Well, anyway, I'm not. But it was a really long week between realising that and finding out."

I put my ice cream on the ground and grabbed the chain of her swing, pulling her over to me and twisting so I could hitch my foot around her leg to hold her in place. "You should have told me."

"I know…"

"I hate that you were worried and I didn't even know."

"Oh, I wasn't like, _worried _worried. We would figure it out. But I _was _curious. You have to admit the timing is ironic." She mimicked my signature eyebrow arch at me and smirked. I did have to admit, if I were her, I would be suspicious of my intentions as well.

I curled my arms around her waist and nudged her nose with mine to get her to look right at me. "Do you think that's the way I want to make a baby with you?" I softly kissed her without closing my eyes. Hers slid shut as she kissed me back. "I know I'm whiny about the whole hamster ball thing, but, Bella, not like that. We can wait. It'll be worth it. Not that I would have objected if it did work out that way." I kissed the tip of her nose, not sure if I was relieved at dodging a bullet, or really freaking bummed.

We finished our ice cream and made our way home to greet the family together. Later that night over dinner, Emmett was grumbling about how he was still getting lost in downtown Seattle even after living there for years and visiting there as a kid his whole life.

"Hell, I don't know how," he growled at his wife who was snickering next to him while she tore up pieces of chicken for Olivia to either eat or throw on the ground.

"It's really not that confusing, honey," Rosalie reassured him with a condescending pat on his shoulder.

"Oh shut up," he snarled, making Rosalie gasp in mock horror and make a funny wide-eyed face to Olivia, which sent her into a little fit of giggles at her comedic parents.

The rest of us just watched and shook our heads, laughing under our breath. Bella's hand balanced atop my knee under the table and one of my arms was laid against the back of her chair as we finished eating.

"There's that one area, down by the market, where the streets get all sideways and twisted and screwed up. I get lost every friggin' time. It's not my fault. How hard is to stick with a simple gridiron plan, ya know, with right angles and shit." Emmett continued muttering, mostly to himself. Rosalie promptly smacked him on the back of his thick skull. "_Shoot,_" he amended quickly, smiling widely at his daughter while the rest of us snickered louder. My mother exchanged a pleased look with her son's wife.

"It's like that effed up area in New York City," Emmett concluded in his defence, directing his argument at me.

"What area?" I asked, chuckling while I sat back and sipped my coffee.

"The Village?" Bella asked, smiling at the amusing family dynamics that always took place at our dinner table whenever the majority of us were present.

"Yeah!" Emmett shouted, pointing and snapping his fingers at Bella, who shook her head and went back to her tea. "Remember, Ed, that time we got so screwed up in that area, walking around looking for some house party at that blonde chicks place or some shit…_shoot._"

Rosalie scowled at him and jumped in quickly. "Okay, _first _of all, Greenwich Village is amazing and historic and residential and _nothing _like Pike's market, you idiot. Second, in Edward's defence, he had only just moved there, so… You've been in Seattle basically your whole life, which just kind of makes you a moron. A _cute_ moron, but a moron nonetheless." She kissed his cheek.

It didn't slip my attention that Bella's hand left my knee.

"Whatever. I got lost on Tuesday, just accept it. And we got seriously friggin' lost that one time in The Village. We were like two hours late for that hot, leggy chick's party. It was embarrassing. Not like she seemed to care once Edward walked through the door.

And…Bella excused herself from the table.

"Are you complete fucking idiot?" I snarled across the dinner table to my retarded brother who had an obliviously dopey smile on his face…which at least had the dignity to falter as I threw my napkin in it.

I stormed off in search of Bella. I didn't think I'd heard the front door open or close, so I went upstairs first. But she wasn't there. I tried the front porch and as I began to look around the corner to where the couches were, I noticed her bare legs from underneath her short cut-offs gleaming in the almost dark sunset as she leaned against the door of her truck. Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest and she stared at her feet. Even from forty feet away I could see her nostrils flaring as she mashed her lips together in an obvious attempt to calm herself down.

I took the porch steps two at a time and hurried over to her, but stopped a good five feet away, not wanting to be intrusive or presumptuous. She just needed to know I was there.

"Emmett's an idiot," I offered lamely, after a few minutes of heavy siilence. My voice sounded foreign and tight. I kept trying to make eye-contact with her, but she stubbornly refused and stared at her toes wiggling against her flip-flops. Not like I was all that surprised.

"He didn't do anything wrong," she muttered, still staring.

That statement would have been fine. _Except _for the way she over-emphasised the word "he", as if to imply that _I _had done something wrong.

I tilted my head to the side, trying to process what she may have meant. After a minute I hadn't come up with a single reasonable explanation. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"No not 'nothing', Bella. You obviously meant something by that. Don't be hypocritical, you want me to work on sharing my mind with you better, and this is the second time in like eight hours that you have clearly shut me out, so…what gives?"

"Hey, don't be a dick. I didn't tell you to come out here and find me. I'm not ready to talk yet," she snarled at me through clamped teeth.

"Do you honestly think my brother has any idea what the hell he is talking about? Does he _ever_?"

"I don't know, he seemed to remember the 'leggy blond girl' quite well, she must have made quite an impression." She was two seconds from losing it completely and I couldn't tell if it was just the natural urge to be jealous or a real ire that was bubbling beneath her composed surface.

"Hey, don't do this," I whispered at her, shaking my head.

"Do what?" she spat back at me.

"_This_. It's so unnecessary after all this time. How can you honestly stand there nd be angry at me over something that happened like six years ago when you and I weren't even speaking at the time?"

"Can you just stop talking please?" she whispered, diverting her eyes and hugging herself tighter as if she could shrink away from me. It was beginning to piss me off.

"First of all, she was just some girl one of my roommates, I can't even remember which one, was fucking at the time. It had nothing to do with me. Secondly, even if it _was _me, what right do you have to be pissed off about it?"

"I'm sorry, _what_?"

Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh. Accurate, but harsh nonetheless.

"I'm just saying…" I shrugged stupidly, backtracking.

"That I don't have any _rights _over you," she finished for me, as if that was what I was really fucking saying. "I get it, thanks. Are we done here?" She pushed off of the truck door to storm past me and back into the house where she would no doubt ignore me the rest of the night and then return to Charlie's and sleep in her own little bed without me. Fuck that. I grabbed her arm and forced her to stop.

I let go quickly after a very pointed stare between my fingers clamped around what was probably still a tender and healing bicep, and me.

"Sorry. Just…don't go yet."

"Why not? I get it. I didn't have any kind of claim on you back then, real or otherwise…no _rights_. You've made your point."

"You're damn right you didn't, Bella, I mean, fuck, come on!" I couldn't help it. Everything inside me screamed to stop being angry and saying stupid shit that was repeatedly upsetting her. Unfortunately, there was one little spark of indignation–a little flame of butchered pride that had been abandoned and forgotten for so long that it was now demanding some attention. "And I told you, I wasn't even the one who was dating her."

"Like that's even what this is about right now," she screamed at me, backing up against the bed of the truck.

"Yeah well, the rest isn't exactly _my _fault now is it?"

_Stupid, stupid… Just shut up._

But there was a scratch, deep inside me. An old wound that blistered so badly at the time that no amount of ignoring it would ever make it just go away. So...maybe I should purge myself of it while the moment presented itself.

"What the hell is your problem tonight?" The pain in her small voice actually splintered off a piece of my heart and made me regret everything I had said. I should swallow my own wounded pride and not force it on her. It was so long ago.

"I just…" I growled loudly, my frustration boiling over, and kicked a little decorative garden stone that lined the edge of the driveway, shooting it across the grass into the increasingly black night. "There were a few months there that really sucked when we first moved away, right? Things were different. We were unsure of ourselves. We came home, and shit was awkward. But that's life, Bella. That's normal. We were stupid kids who thought we would be immune to real life and it kicked us in the ass just to prove a point. It was unintentional and fucked up and I hated every minute of it that year, but it wasn't anyone's fault. We just drifted."

I trailed off. Now it was me who couldn't meet her eyes. I was at a fork in the road. I could either apologise and go place a gentle kiss on her cheek, her jaw, her lips, then force her eye-contact and kiss her again, staring into her eyes so she felt my love radiated in her bones as my lips moved over hers tenderly. Or I could really fucking hurt her. It should have been an obvious choice, but in the heat of the moment, nothing is ever black and white.

I made a choice.

"But _you_ walked away from _me_." I was nearly sobbing. My voice broke on the word "away". It got her complete attention and her head snapped up from picking at her fingernails. Her eyes were no longer the mask of concealed hurt and rage; they were wide and scared of what my words meant. And it was the first footprint down the fork that led me to the point of no return. She would spend the rest of her life agonising over what I was going to say, feeling horrible and remorseful. I knew her. I knew her tender little heart, her compassionate soul. I didn't ever intend on showing her the path to this one little thing. But there I was, taking her hand and leading her down it anyway.

"What?" she whispered. Her eyes were powerful as they penetrated through mine and into my heart as she searched around for what I could possibly mean.

"That night, in the back of the Volvo. We were sobered up by then. And you made the choice to walk away from me. You climbed off me, buttoned your shorts, and got out of the car, literally shutting the door in my face. You walked away. And you did it on purpose. It was a pretty fucking clear message from my point of view." I couldn't look at her. I was looking somewhere just over her shoulder, to the black outlines of the trees with shrouded hints of the last remaining orange brightness of the day poking out behind them as the sun went to sleep for the night. "Bella." I had to swallow _something_ back. "You chose to do that. I can honestly tell you that _nothing _has ever hurt as bad as that moment in my life. Nothing. And you did it on purpose. You _meant _to hurt me. I would never do that to you."

I had given up all hope of rehashing the story with any kind of dignity. Tears fell down my cheeks and I didn't make a move to hide them from her. I never would.

"Oh my god," she whispered and out of the corner of my eye I saw her hand rise to cover her mouth. "No, no, no…" I looked up at her and saw her head shaking slowly back and forth and her eyes blurred over, seeing nothing. "I just…I needed to escape, that was all. It was too much, too awkward, and too…not us, I just…"

"I get that. But at some point later on you would have thought about it, about how it would have been interpreted from my perspective, how it would make me feel. You could have called me, or emailed or something. But you never did, so…"

"Oh, Edward," she cried through her fingers and closed the space between us. "I am so, so sorry. I never meant…I mean, I would never… I know you are the protector in this relationship, but you have no idea what the sight of you smiling that stupid-giddy smile does to me when you are nothing but happy. It breaks everything inside of me in a really good way and I would kill to always see that smile on your face. I should never ever be the one to hurt you, ever. I wish I could take so much about all of that shit back…" she trailed off, breaking away a little from me.

"No don't, I mean, who knows, right? I've had a pretty sheltered life so far, so, a little hurt builds character. Besides, I like where we're at now. I wouldn't want to risk that for anything," I admitted.

"Except for the hamster ball," she corrected with a sheepish smile.

"Yeah, except for the hamster ball."

"Still, I hate this. I hate that you ever felt like that, or thought I would _want _to hurt you. I could never. Please tell me you know that? I am so, so sorry. You should walk around smiling that stupid smile all the time, and never hurt like that, you deserve it."

"Yeah?" I stepped forward into her, pushing her back against the cab of the truck. I wanted to move on quickly. I told her how I felt, she felt horrid like I knew she would, the end. No need to dwell on it as log as both of us were forgiven. "Then climb in the back of the truck with me. Let me try and knock you up illegitimately and then we can run down to the city hall to make it right." I winked at her devilishly.

She laughed heartily and shoved me back shaking her head. I bounced right back and enveloped her in my arms, revelling in the feeling finally, hating the last hour of what was such a beautiful day. We had that kiss that maybe we should have had before and maybe we shouldn't. The slow gentle one where I looked into her eyes and promised her everything I had as my lips moved with hers. She returned each promise.

"For what it's worth, back then… I never…" My eyes narrowed and my head tilted uncomfortably, shaking out the word no and the answer to the rest of the sentence I didn't care to say aloud.

"Me either," she whispered and her fingers dug into the back of my neck as she pulled herself up on her tippy toes to finish off the kiss much more passionately than it started.

The front door opened and Rosalie stuck her head out. "Alice and Jasper are on their way over and Olivia is upstairs yelling at Emmett that she wants 'Uncle Eddie' to play mermaids with her in the bath, so… If you two are done out here, then…?" she trailed off and smiled wickedly at us.

"He'll be right in," Bella called out over my shoulder, smashed between me and the truck.

I heard Rosalie snort something obnoxious and then the screen door snapped shut.

"I love you Edward Anthony Cullen. I will spend the rest of my life making sure that I never hurt you like that again, I promise."

"Oh good, because I'm so perfect," I scoffed at her. "I mean… I _am_ but, you know, for argument's sake, don't be so dramatic."

She shoved me away from her, giggling, the sound was warm. I laughed along with her and we made our way back into the house so I could apparently go play with Barbie's.

As I climbed the stairs, I noticed Rosalie pull Bella aside surreptitiously, whispering in the corner by the entrance to the kitchen. _Girls._

I poked my head into the bathroom that was in the hallway just outside the guest room where Olivia always stayed, at the opposite end of the hall from me and Allie's old rooms. Emmett was perched on the edge of the vanity swinging his legs casually and joking with his daughter who sat in an inch and a half of water with two inches of bubbles, blowing them around and singing to herself.

"Hey," I grumbled to him with a lame head nod and no eye-contact. I sat on the floor beside the bathtub and began playing with Olivia.

Our mermaids dove through bubble caves and had silly conversations with one another. I figured after a few minutes my brother would just leave…but he didn't. Olivia eventually got bored with mermaids and began splashing various bath toys around ignoring me, so I leaned against the wall and balanced my elbows on my knees, my eyes alternating between looking fondly at Olivia while she played and staring at the space between my legs.

"So, everything okay down there?" Emmett eventually asked. His tone was so light and casual it made me want to punch him in his stupid face.

"No thanks to you," I grumbled and I should have left it at that. But I didn't. "Seriously, what the heck is your problem, Emmett?"

"What do you mean?" he asked with irritating ignorance.

"You know what I mean," I snarled at him, trying really hard to keep my tone neutral, knowing full-well, after so many years studying psychology, how sensitive children could be to their surroundings even when it didn't seem like they were paying attention.

"No I don't," he countered. "How would I, _Edward_?" The way he spat my name out at me was like it was leaving a bad taste in his mouth. It caught me off guard and my eyes snapped up to him. He was glaring at me like he wanted to slam my head against the wall. I was just trying to figure out how the fuck I had become the bad guy in all of this.

We stared each other down for several long minutes in silence, the way only two brothers cold ever do. Our looks said we wanted to kill one another. Our silence said we were trying to understand why.

Eventually, he pushed against the cabinets and stomped out of the bathroom. I stood quickly and grabbed him just outside the bathroom door. Olivia looked up but only for a moment and then went back to her bath squirters. I let go of him and leaned against the far edge of the door jamb away from him so I could still see him in hallway and Olivia in the bathtub.

"What the hell, Emmett?" I whispered harshly.

"What?" he spat back at me, clearly angry. My brother was one of the most level-headed people I had ever known. He was unshakeable. And yet, it was obvious that he was totally pissed off at me.

I just shrugged and shook my head and narrowed my eyes, my confusion obvious even to the most oblivious person.

"Whatever, man, just forget it," Emmett muttered and turned to leave. I couldn't follow him, I had to keep an eye on Olivia.

"Dude, I don't want to forget it," I called after him.

"Well, then what the fuck _do _you want, Edward? Because please, just tell me and I will be more than happy to give it to you," he snarled. A snarling Emmett was a very foreign Emmett to me.

"What am I missing here, bro?" I was genuinely dumbfounded. But I loved my brother and would do anything for him.

His face softened and he took a few steps back toward me. "I'm your big brother, little man," he began with the affectionate term he used to give me noogies to decades ago. "You think it doesn't upset me that you don't talk to me about shit but you seem to talk to everyone else?"

_Oh. _

"I don't know. But I'm not the big idiot you seem to think I am who doesn't notice shit around him. Like the floorboards in the hallway creaking in the middle of the night whenever Bella stayed over when we were younger. Or the fact that you two would both randomly disappear at parties and shit and come back looking like a train wreck. Or the way you look at her now anytime she's in the same room as you. I'm _not_ an idiot. No matter what you think. And it fucking burns me that you don't talk to me about your own shit.

"Who do you think the first person was that I wanted to call the minute I got off the phone with Rose when she told me she was pregnant again? You. You're my best friend, bro, I fucking tell you everything. And how many fucking years has this shit been going on? You think I am completely blind to it all? To the years you were a miserable little prick hiding out in New York and refusing to come home? To the way you two are now? And still…nothing. No fucking midnight phone call whining about missing her. No advice on relationships even though I've been married with a kid now for like, fucking, an eternity… I don't know…whatever, man." He waved his hand in the air between us and looked away.

"Emmett, I…" I was genuinely at a loss for words. He was right. Years had just kind of slipped away and I hadn't ever stopped and given it too much thought as to all the opportunities I _could _have talked to him, for advice or a rant, or what-the-fuck-ever.

"So, I guess I'm bitter and I say stupid shit just to fuck with you guys. For that I'm sorry," he concluded, ignoring my flapping mouth and attempt to formulate words.

"Wait, you do what? Well, that's just mean…"

"Fuck you."

"Fair enough." I shrugged.

"Go make sure my kid doesn't drown."

"Are we cool?"

"You gonna talk to me more?" He crossed his arms across his big barrel chest and glared at me.

"Well…I'm not fucking Alice or anything, but yeah…"

"Thank god for that," he snorted and pushed me back into the bathroom so hard I hit my head on the side of the mirror. I heard him laughing to himself as he walked away.

Then, I spent the next twenty minutes playing mermaids and practicing counting to ten with water crayons. I was pretty good at it by the time we were done.

After I wrapped Olivia up in a fluffy pink towel, dried her all off and got her into her pj's, I brought her downstairs to find her parents and say goodnight to everyone. Alice and Jasper had arrived, with a cheesecake apparently. Everyone was in the kitchen gathered around the table with plates and mugs of tea and coffee. Well, everyone except my brother, who was hovering over the box at the bar with a fork and a bottle of beer in his other hand, eating directly from the spare half. Sometimes, I had no idea how the same family who raised me also raised him. But I loved him and still felt like a first-class shithead, so, I just shoved him out of the way and stole a bite before handing him his sweet-smelling, clean child in bunny slippers who was now wanting to ruin her clean teeth with a bite of cheesecake.

Charlie had stopped by as well, obviously either taking a break from his shift or having just finished it, since he was in full uniform. He sat at the table eating cheesecake and smiling fondly as Alice yammered a mile a minute at Bella who could do nothing but nod in response whenever Alice as forced to stop long enough to take a breath.

I barely got so much as a lame, one-armed hug out of her as a greeting after not seeing her for several months, and she didn't even break in whatever story she was telling Bella while she gave it to me. So, I mussed her hair up as I sat down beside Bella with my coffee mug and a fork to eat off of her piece of cake.

Olivia made her rounds, laying sloppy wet kisses on all of our cheeks and Rosalie took her up to bed for the night with the promise to read her not one, but _three _stories, just so she would agree to go peacefully.

"Cute kid," Charlie murmured around the tines of his fork as he shoved a bite in his mouth, nodding at Emmett.

"Wait." Alice's voice disrupted her own yammering and everyone else's, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Her eyes were on Bella whose hand was wrapped around her tea cup mid way to her mouth.

"What?" she squeaked. "I was paying attention. The band is booked for six months straight and you think Jazz should…"

"No, no, no…" Alice interrupted her. "Forget what I was saying." She had a little flame in her eyes that I was instantly fearful of.

"Is that a real Chanel Ultra?" she asked Bella without lifting her eyes off the ring on Bella's right hand.

"Uhh…" Bella blinked a few times and shook her head. "Is that supposed to be a trick question?"

"Your ring. Is that a _real _Ultra Noir double tier? _With_ the freaking diamonds might I add? Or is it just a knock off? Please tell me it is just a knock-off." She stood up and shoved her chair back to lean across the table and examine the ring on Bella's delicate finger where it was still frozen around her mug.

"Uhm…why?" Was all Bella could manage.

"_Why_?" Alice spat back, nearly collapsing onto the tabletop in exasperation.

"Alice," I murmured lowly, drawing her name out in a very unmistakeable warning. She pretended not to hear me.

"Uhm, only because it is like a five thousand dollar ring, so, you know…"Alice joked lightly, stroking the ring adoringly with the tiny pad of her index finger. Bella choked on her tea and nearly spat it all over my sister's face…which would have served her right.

I had my justifications for spending so much on that ring. Reasons that made perfect sense to me as well as to my father whom I discussed it with first, but which I was not ready to explain to Bella just yet. And Alice could fuck off.

"Just saying," Alice continued in her smug little sing-songy voice as she sat back in her chair shrugging, "and they say _I'm _the spoiled one."

"Bella is hardly spoiled," I jumped in, fuming at my little sister. Bella was still staring into her tea cup with her jaw slackened. I'm not sure she had blinked yet.

"I didn't mean her. I'm just wondering who the hell pays _your_ credit card, you starving student you."

"Oh, I'm sure Bella earns it," my brother piped in from the other side of the kitchen, his mouth full of cheesecake. From somewhere in the mud room I heard the dryer door slam and my mother squeak, obviously disliking the implications.

Also not fond of my brother's crass implications…the man with a gun sitting across the table from me, whose face had gone beet red and was trying to slit my throat with his gaze alone.

My brother winked at me from hunched over the bar with a fork in his mouth.

I cleared my throat uncomfortably and tried to remember how to swallow but couldn't quite manage.

Bella's head turned toward me in slow-motion. I was thankful for the movement because it tore my eyes from Charlie, whose nose was flaring and fingers were twitching. I was hyper-aware of my proximity to his only daughter.

I looked at Bella, whose wide eyes were clearly only asking me one thing; verification. I scrunched my face up and shook my head a little, hoping to appease her. Alice snorted at me in obvious objection.

Then my mother exited the mud room with a laundry basket on her hip and red cheeks. I gave her a quick, sheepish look, and she jumped in to save the day. She stopped just behind Charlie's chair and placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Weren't you supposed meet Carlisle upstairs to go over those fishing trip arrangements?" Silence. "There's really good scotch up there." She added after he hadn't moved so much as a muscle.

Charlie grunted and muttered something and slowly pushed back his chair, never breaking his gaze on me. He had on his "I'm watching you" cop face and I tried not snicker as I forced myself to blink and look away.

"Right," I drew out the word long and slow, looking back at Bella whose cheeks were growing pinker by the second. "So, you want to go for a drive or something?"

I was suddenly desperate to just get away from the house and everyone in it. It had been one hell of a long day considering I started it off in New York. I was exhausted, emotionally spent, and now, a shitty combination or humiliated and horrified. I needed some fresh air. And Bella. Always, Bella.

"Yes, please," she whispered, still holding her tea cup aloft. I took it from her hand and placed it on the table, smiling sheepishly at my mother and kicking Alice's chair out of spite as I walked by.

"Workin'…for it," Emmett sang obnoxiously as I pushed open the swing door to the living room and stood to the side to let Bella cross first.

I flipped him the bird, said I was sorry to my mother who scolded me for doing so, and left them all in there to giggle without us. We grabbed our shoes and jackets and opted for Bella's truck, since it meant exiting out the front door and not having to go back through the kitchen to get the keys to the garage and the old Volvo, passing by my embarrassing family again.

"I'll drive considering I'm not sure you've even blinked once in the last ten minutes," I said, yanking the keys from Bella's hand and ushering her over to the passenger side door. She didn't protest.

"Edward," she whispered as I was firing up the truck. Her hands were stacked neatly in her lap with the right one on top, her eyes staring glossily at her knees. It sounded like a question.

"Bella," I said in a much firmer voice, making my intention to end the conversation pretty clear.

She turned to look at me, questioningly, but I raised my eyebrows in defiance and she dropped it. Sort of. I was sure that the idea of me spending so much on her would bother her for a long time. But she would understand someday when I could properly explain why I felt so compelled. A day that was, unfortunately, still a ways in the future.

I didn't leave with a certain destination in mind, but revisiting the soccer field seemed as good an idea as any, so I pulled the truck through the crunching gravel lot for the second time that day. We got out, but instead of crossing the dewy grass to the swings or some picnic tables, I balanced my foot on the top of a hitching post and hoisted myself up on top of the old truck's front hood.

I held out my hand for Bella to join me. The stars were abundant and sparking in a way that you would never in a million years be able to see from any vantage point inside the city. The sky surrounding each little white glimmer was inky black and the air just smelled like summer–a familiar combination of cut grass, dirt, and sun. I folded my arms under my head and lay back against the creaking metal, knowing how solid the old beast was and that the truck could withstand anything. Bella copied me.

We were quiet for a very long time. You could hear the crickets chirping and the breeze blowing through the nearby trees. I could hear Bella's relaxed, gentle breathing. We were silent as we both mulled over our own thoughts.

Eventually, Bella scooted over and nuzzled in closer to me. I lowered my right arm and she used it as a pillow. My fingers kneaded softly into her shoulder, my breathing slowly, unconsciously falling in step with hers.

I wanted to tell Bella my plans. I wanted to tell her everything. But I also didn't. It was the painful tear between wanting so desperately to do or say something in the moment because it was sure to be amazing, while also knowing that the wait would be worth it. It wasn't the same thing as not sharing my feelings with her the way she had asked me to. It was just this one thing. I wanted to save it. So we lay there, quietly wrapped around one another, and looked up at the stars.

* * *

WAIT! Wha...

Did I just answer the burning question that every single one of you have hit me with at some point since chapter six!

Yeah. Yeah, I did.

I truly never intended to divulge whether or not they were "with" anyone else over the dark years. I always avoided it. I feared that answering it would only divert focus away from the relationship at the epicenter of this story. But I think I was wrong. I think it only added to the underlying sense of devotion between these characters. And again, "they" control the way their story is told, not me, so...there's that...

*pretends that doesn't make me sound crazy*

(Also please note: NO, the Chanel ring isn't the engagement ring. Patience please...lol)

Until next time, sorry there weren't any lemons, but how freaking cute is Olivia?

Air

~xox~


	38. It's a Date

This chapter is short and to the point...which is to say that there were just a few things that had to be established before we could move on first, as anxious as we all are.

After this things...well...they get interesting.

*smiles sweetly and gives nothing away*

Also: I wanted to thank everyone sincerely for all the beautiful reviews and PM's I've received lately. FFN has been a thorn in my side and refusing to let me reply via my mobile like I always do, so I feel like there have been so many messages I wanted to reply to but didn't get the chance. Please know that I read and am touched by your every word, whether I am able to get back to you or not.

THANK YOU!

~xox~

* * *

Olivia's birthday was perhaps one of the sweetest things I had ever been lucky enough to attend. Rosalie made everything beautiful and Olivia wore the puffiest, whitest dress I had ever seen despite her mother trying to coerce her into something more practical. I think it may have been just a dress-up outfit, but Olivia demanded it, calling it her "party dress" and stamping her little foot. Sometimes, she reminded me so much of her mother it was all I could do not to laugh at them interacting. Olivia paired the dress with Tinkerbelle rain boots and I almost died from simply adoring her.

Seeing a two year old hopped up on cake, sugar cookies, and juice boxes was hysterical. The event was at my brother and Rosalie's home just outside Seattle. By the end of the evening the poor little puffy thing was melting down over everything. She was falling asleep standing up and her white dress with the satin bow tied around the waist was covered in all things chocolate, pink frosting, and various shades of juice. My brother had her flopped over his shoulder as we all gathered in the foyer to say our good-byes and head back toward Forks. All the other party-goers had left hours before and the only ones remaining after us were Rosalie's parents, who were staying to help finish clean and then unwind with the parents after the rosy-cheeked toddler was put to bed.

Alice and Jasper were officially living together in his apartment, which I refused to dedicate much thought for Jasper's safety's sake, so they took off in their own vehicle. I held open Bella's door and then followed her into the back seat of my father's SUV. On the ride home we joked around with my parents about the festivities and Rosalie's crazy cousin for a while, but before we were even ten minutes onto the black highway, Bella's head was flopped over on my shoulder and she was breathing deep and regularly. I rested my chin on her head and was asleep within minutes as well. We hadn't been getting a whole lot of shut-eye since I had been in town, so it was much needed.

Blissfully wrapped in my bed sheets at my parents' house, it felt like we were there for only a short moment when the bed began shaking annoyingly. I grumbled incoherently and buried my face deeper into the top of Bella's head and hugged her body tighter where she lay curled around me. My fingers reached out and wrapped blindly around the top of the blankets. I pulled them up higher, over her bare shoulder and to my chin, trying to will away whatever it was that was trying to wake us.

"Isabella Marie Swan."

Shit. _It _was Charlie.

My eyes shot open to the uniformed man who already had my name circled in red Sharpie at the top of his shit-list, armed and standing over my bed as his naked daughter lay in my arms.

Usually, at the top floor of a three storey house, with a bedroom at the far end of the hallway that only contained my room and the empty one beside it, we were left to our own devices. My parents' room and the library were both on the second floor. They rarely ventured to the top of the house anymore, even during daytime hours, as they basically had no need to. We had always taken advantage of the secluded location and were shamefully continuing to do so.

And Charlie wanted to murder me for it…that much was obvious. Couldn't say I blamed him.

I stammered a few things that only seemed to infuriate him further while Bella squirmed and mumbled inarticulately, worming her way closer to me. Her hand slid up my chest, over my shoulder, and curled around my neck.

I was going to be shot. That much was obvious.

"Not helping," I sung lowly into Bella's ear, gently pulling her hand from my neck and kneeing her in the ass, demanding that she wake-up. She began muttering my name in irritation until her father's voice, finally registering in her brain, promptly cut her off.

"Bells, I have to leave town for a couple of days," he grumbled, his eyes, while icy cold, no longer looked at me or Bella, but rather, he stared at the foot of the bed as if studying it. His cheeks were pink, but not in the same way that Bella's often turned.

She flipped over immediately, clutching the blankets to her chest and blinking up at Charlie who did his best to force his eyes back over to us. I could practically feel my body warming from under the weight of Bella's blushing.

"Daddy," she whispered coarsely, clearing her throat afterward. "Uhm… I…. We…" She sat up and tried to run her hand over her wild hair to smooth it down, but didn't want to let go of the sheets for too long, so she stopped and stared silently at her lap instead. Which was too bad, I was kind of interested to see how she planned on finishing that sentence. _"We were just..." _It was probably better for all of us that she hadn't.

"I just wanted to let you know I have to leave town for a couple of days. I have to head up to Seattle to hand over a case that's being moved there, finally. They are much better equipped for it than we are. Glad to be getting the paperwork off my desk, actually, so… I tried your cell but I think its dead, it kept going straight to voicemail. Anyway, you have a house key with you, right?"

I snorted obnoxiously despite it being a hazard to my health. Bella turned her head back to glare at me before answering. "No, it's at home in my bedroom, but I can use the spare." She shot me another look to silence any further commentary from me about her being capable of even finding the goddamn thing. I mashed my lips together and pulled my hands from under the sheets and raised them in mock-surrender…to both parties.

"Okay, then. You'll be alright for a couple of days?" Charlie asked gently. It didn't escape me that his eyes were on mine as he asked. Bella was too distracted by her embarrassment to notice.

"Yeah, Dad, I'm fine," she stammered. "Just be safe."

"Right," Charlie grunted. "Okay, I'll call you later tonight when I get everything settled at the station." He bent down to kiss her softly on the head while offering me a not-so-subtle warning with his eyes over her bare shoulder. "I love you, Bells."

"I love you too, Dad."

As the floorboards creaked under his departure, Bella rolled back around to me, groaning dramatically. She buried her face into my chest and pulled the covers over her head.

I laughed at her. "Oh, cut the poor guy some slack," I joked, peeking under the covers at her little red face.

"Poor _guy_?" she wailed. "What about _us_? What about _me_! Oh my god, I might die," she screeched and yanked the covers back down.

Unfortunately, my continued giggling only upset her further. She yelled a stifled string of obscenities at me from under the sheets. I honestly tried to stop laughing, but to no avail - a swearing Bella was very entertaining.

"Oh, come on." What do you expect? It can't be easy," I offered helpfully.

"What can't be easy?" she asked in a tiny voice, peeking out at me.

"Uhh…" I stammered, thinking it was kind of obvious. "All of this. You. Me."

"Naked," she screeched and her face scrunched up pathetically.

"No, Bella. Well…I mean, _yeah, _but no. I don't know, look at Emmett and Olivia last night. My big, never-knew-emotion-if-it-smashed-him-in-the-face oaf of a brother teared up as she blew at that little number two candle on her cake. I've never seen him smile the way he does when she's running around with a balloon and playing with her friends while he stands there quietly observing. That's his baby. I highly doubt that feeling will ever go away, no matter what the number is on her cake.

"She's his little girl. She cries for him when she breaks a toy and needs it fixed. She runs to him when he gets home from work at night, and she snuggles with him in her tiny little bed while he reads stories about princesses and Dr. Seuss. She goes to him and Rose for everything. That's all she knows and needs. And then some day, a million years from now that I'm sure will feel like the blink of an eye for Em…she won't need him as much. She won't cry to him and she won't cuddle in bed with him. No more princess stories, no more Band-Aids on the knee… He'll realise he's essentially been replaced. I don't know… _Shit,_ it just seems really sad, Bella, especially in your father's case. I guess I just sympathize. It's why I let him shoot me daggers all day, or corner me in a library and try to instil the fear of God in me. He's earned that right, I suppose."

I shrugged and let my mind wander. I truly couldn't fathom being a father and feeling like your little girl was slipping away into adulthood and leaving you behind. The idea alone nearly ruined me.

Bella was quiet for a long time as she let go of the covers and curled back around to face me. My fingers had found their way back under the blankets and were slowly trailing little paths up and down her side, over the swell of her hip, down her thigh, and back again. Her fingertips wiggled at the base of my neck and she hummed softly in my ear, enjoying the light touch.

"I guess you're kinda right," she finally admitted. "I mean, I love my dad, he's everything. But, Edward, don't be so naïve."

"Huh?" I was beginning to fall back asleep at that point. I struggled to reopen my eyes and find hers. "What do you mean?"

Her big eyes were glowing up at me as the sunlight finally began to peek over the roof and through the branches of the huge apple tree outside my bedroom window. The very same tree we used to climb as kids. The one Bella fell from when she was eleven and broke her arm. I was the only one she'd allow to sign her cast. I used to write little stories in tiny scrawl along the length of it to keep her entertained. It seemed like a long time ago to _me._

The grey light filtered into various shades of gold and pink as it rose over the horizon and bounced off the fragrant apples into my bedroom. The pale-green flecks in Bella's eyes floated beautifully to the surface while she smiled up at me.

"Band-Aids and shoulders to cry on?" she began, pulling me back to the conversation. "I mean, give me a break. That's _always _been you. You aren't replacing him. He's my dad and that can never change. But you have always been everything that you still are for me for every day. So you have a right, as well, that's all I'm saying."

I kissed her forehead and she laid her head back against my shoulder and yawned, snuggling into me.

She had a point. I had a right to love her, too.

Later that afternoon, I passed by the old soccer field on my way out of town toward the hospital. I was meeting my father for lunch just for something to do, and because I missed the guy and wanted to catch up a bit with him over my way-too-short stay in Washington.

As I drove by, I saw two teenagers chasing each other playfully around the big grassy area just to the side of mine and Bella's swings. The girl squealed while the boy watched her much more closely than the girl was appreciating. For some reason, something that wouldn't have been too difficult to figure out, the scene made me smile to myself as I accelerated, hitting the fifty MPH zone out of town.

The giddy smile was still on my face when I reached my father's office. It was already well into the afternoon, and he was just now being forced onto a break by the nurses who were all long-time staff and had always adored him. Mercifully, I didn't even have to suggest getting the hell out of the hospital and away from the cafeteria slop. He was already holding his car keys as I opened the door to his office while gently knocking at the same time just to be considerate.

"Hey, son, where do you want to go?" he asked, throwing his white jacket across his desk and checking to ensure his pager was still clipped and functioning at his waist. He ushered me back out the door, following closely behind me.

"I don't care." I shrugged, just wanting the time with my father, truly not caring where that time was at. Well, as long as I didn't have to eat rubber macaroni with burnt coffee, that is.

"Take your time, Cullens," the youngest of the nurses at the front station hollered after us, smiling enthusiastically and waving for some reason. "Enjoy yourselves."

The elevator doors had no sooner closed in front of us than I had my eyebrow arched curiously at my father. He chuckled at me and shook his head.

"I swear I have told her at least two dozen times that you are taken. She's persistent." He shrugged and dug his car keys out of his pocket, leaving me behind in the elevator, both uneasy with the obvious display and thrilled with the idea of my father openly telling people that I was unavailable.

We ended up at the local diner so that we wouldn't have to spend our entire time together in a car to and from another, more decent, place. As my father looked over the menu he made jokes about how unhealthy of a doctor he was just by entering the greasy little place, but then proceeded to order a double cheeseburger with friend onions and bacon, fries, and a regular soda. I laughed at his sheepishness once the waitress left with our orders and pretended I didn't eat like shit on a regular basis back in New York.

Technically, it wasn't too large of a leap, since my junk food days appeared to be numbered. Bella had a string of job opportunities waiting for her in the city, so she was bound to be there a lot more. I always ate better when she was around. We either ate at nicer restaurants with properly balanced entrees, or one of us cooked. However, one thing was for sure, there would be a lot more dessert in my apartment than there ever had been before.

After a lot of generic, but enjoyable small talk with my father, he awkwardly transitioned to asking how everything was going between me and Bella. I had to laugh at how incredibly forced the topic change was.

"Pretty good, I take it," he continued. Clearly, he had been awake when Charlie came over earlier and had heard his version of the morning already.

I didn't even want to think about how that particular interaction played out. I could just imagine a fuming Charlie storming through the kitchen on his way out the side door to his cruiser, catching my father as he poured coffee into his to-go mug on his way to the hospital first thing in the morning, oblivious to it all.

"Yeah…" I hedged slowly with wide, scandalised eyes, diverting my gaze into my fries and feeling the heat creep up my neck.

He laughed. "I mean, other than the good police chief telling me he almost rid me of one of my sons this morning?"

I shook my head, unsure if he was at all upset. Not that he assumed Bella and I were still virginal or anything. Apparently, that ship had _definitely _sailed several years ago on one unfortunate Christmas Eve night. But still, there was a good chance he would be bothered by the blatant disrespect. I mean, technically, my parents were home the night before...

"Good," I finally answered, glancing at his broad, genuine smile and realising that there was no offense behind it. I nodded repeatedly, smiling to myself as my answer resonated. "I mean, _really _good. I think she'll be able to find work back in the city so...you know?" I trailed off as a wide smile broke out across my own face.

"That's great, son, really. It's about damn time, don't you think?"

_I do think…_

"Although," he continued in a more serious tone that caught my attention. "You realise that, if for whatever reason, it doesn't work out the way I know you are hoping, that will be okay too, right?'

"No, Dad, that would _suck_," I grumbled, glowering at him for raining on my happy, swirly parade.

"Well, I didn't say it wouldn't. But, patience is a virtue, and whatnot…._Edward_." His very pointed gaze drilled into me and I knew he was referencing my deficiency in the department.

I rolled my eyes petulantly at him and dragged a fry through some ketchup only to drop it back onto my plate while I sulked at thought of how much it actually _would _suck if Bella wasn't able to move to the east coast again. I couldn't fathom a reason that would keep her in Washington State without me, but fate seemed to both love and hate me simultaneously so, there was never a way to predict those kinds of things in my life.

"If you recall, son, I did the first year of my internship in Denver," he spoke softly. He had officially transitioned into his "Dad" tone.

I looked up and nodded respectfully. I had always known he was in Denver for a year or so when he first graduated med school, but I hadn't ever heard him talk about it much, certainly not directly to me.

"Emmett was already born," he continued. "He was just five months old when I first left. I'll never forget that weekend. I spent the whole time packing and organising last-minute details while your mother lay sick in bed. Renee had been staying with us to help out with the baby since I was too busy to do much. I felt horribly guilty the entire weekend and kept charging into the room, announcing that I wasn't going anywhere and that I would figure something else out since I hadn't been given my first choice of teaching hospitals, only to have her dismiss me and demand that I go finish my packing or else. Technically, Mom only had the flu, but the timing was horrid and I felt wretched for just getting on a plane and leaving her and Emmett and everything behind me, even if technically I couldn't help it." He was silent for a moment as he recalled the time in his life. A time I could definitely relate to.

"I hear that," I grumbled, more to myself than anything else, but he made a muffled scoffing sound as he took a pull from his soda in appreciation.

"Exactly. I felt like I missed everything that first year. I made it home for a few days at Christmas and Emmett's birthday, but that was it. No other holidays and I certainly wasn't there for the countless other things I should have been. Like being for your mother–to comfort her, to reassure her, to help her when the task of caring for a baby became emotionally and physically exhausting. She cried to me at night on the phone sometimes and my heart shattered every time. Even more, oddly enough, when she laughed or I could hear your brother giggling or beginning to talk in the background. While I longed to be there to comfort her during the hard times, my entire _being _ached over the loss of the good times. There were no cell phones back then, Edward. No video messages of my son walking for the first time or text messages of his smiling face covered in mushy peas. I just had to endure it. We both did. We knew we weren't the first couple to be separated temporarily, and that we wouldn't be the last. We pushed forward and at the end of my first year I will admit that if I hadn't been approved to move back to Washington and finish out my rotation in Seattle, I was going to walk away. Whether your mother would have _let _me would have been another situation entirely." He laughed, a far-away look in his warm, smiling eyes. "My point is, I know all about patience and its many challenges, as well as the moments that nearly break you down. But in the end, we are stronger for it. Think about it, have you ever heard your mother or I fight drastically? We just don't. We remember as if it were yesterday the pain of separation and the longing to just _be_ together. We know that no matter what, we have one another and you kids and it grants a lot of perspective in life, son. Well, that and seeing Charlie and Bella go through the kind of real loss that they have gone through. Believe me, Edward, you two will be better than fine when you make it to the end of all of this, regardless of how you get there."

I nodded sincerely over my fries at my father's talent for providing real compassion and appreciation when needed. He always knew how to offer real insight that actually resonated and made me feel better. I was almost certain that not every kid was so lucky to have parents as wonderful as mine.

"So, I know that it fucking sucks, is what I'm trying to say," he added, causing me to choke on my soda. My father _never _cursed, especially in front of his kids. He grinned at me, finishing off his burger while I gaped at him, sputtering. Goddamn doctor and he wasn't even concerned that his son was choking to death over diet soda less than two feet in front of him.

When I finally recovered, he winked at me and smiled his fatherly smile, the kind with the deep wrinkles cracked around the corners of his eyes, and that was that. He genuinely understood how much I hated ever having any distance between me and Bella, or any of my family for that matter, and that I would go to any length possible to protect what we had.

"So…Emmett was a shithead baby?" I eventually joked, trying to force a lighter mood.

He laughed heartily and stole one of my fries, having finished his own. "No, actually, he was a saint. He barely ever cried and slept through the night almost immediately. He always ate well, which knowing him now isn't that shocking, but _some _kids can be very finicky. He laughed at everything and had huge dimples that everyone adored. I still would never be crass enough to assume it was easy for your mother, being basically on her own. I know it wasn't, but he was literally the perfect baby. _You _on the other hand you little terror," he raised his eyebrows at me and shook his head while I laughed. "Let's just say that if you ever get the words 'colicky' and 'high-needs' thrown at you, I will sympathize but also find the universe a very just place."

Yeah…I loved him.

I let him finish my fries before we left.

Bella and I said bittersweet good-byes at the airport a few days after that. Bitter because we would both miss our family. Walking away from Washington always felt wrong, regardless of how many times we had done it in the past, especially the older we got. It was sweet because, as we bordered the plane, we waited hand-in-hand, refusing to even unhook our fingers from one another's while we fished in our bags for our boarding passes, much to the steward's annoyance. The man rolled his eyes and eyed the long line behind us dramatically. He could fuck himself, I wasn't letting go of my girl's hand–ever again if I could help it. I smiled obnoxiously at him as I showed him my passport and eventually sauntered passed.

We didn't get the headphones for the in-flight movie, and Bella fell asleep on my shoulder less than thirty minutes after take-off, with her legs draped over the tops of mine. I spent the rest of the flight alternating between typing on my laptop which I had balanced atop her legs, and stroking the back of her hand silently while watching her sleep. She smiled every time my fingers swept along her skin. The day was definitely more sweet than bitter.

Her alerts were not muted, so the moment we walked off the plane and she picked up a signal, her cell began alarming incessantly. We both stopped and eyed her back pocket while she grabbed at it and scrolled through the messages. Her face lit up for a moment and then twisted in contemplation. My own mouth flapped as I tried to form a sentence that would ask what the heck was going on, but she was vibrating palpably and its effect seemed to have drifted toward me and I formed nothing coherent.

She held up her finger to silence me anyhow as she dialled and put the phone to her ear walking away from the noisy crowd. As she listened to her messages her smile broadened and she began pacing. I had already come to the conclusion the call was work-related, so her enthusiasm was beginning to trill through me like I had digested a live sparkler.

We had spent the last couple of months discussing what we would do given each of Bella's options when the time came to make a decision. She remained in contact over her summer in Forks with all of the job prospects she wanted the most which she interviewed with before she left the east coast.

In my mind, as Bella paced and squealed into her phone, I was busy planning where we would stick her little corner desk in my tiny apartment and whether or not she was going to want me to buy new bed sheets. Mine were the same ones that had been on my bed back in Washington since I was fourteen–red and black flannel–and while they were worn and deliciously inviting, I supposed they weren't all that girly. I was fine with it. Bella was staying on the east coast and in my bed every night. The fucking sheets could be hot pink with daisies on them for all I cared.

As she bounced silently on the balls of her feet while trying to remain professional-sounding to whomever was on the other end of the receiver, I planned long nights in the pink-daisy bed. Talking, making love endlessly, waking in the middle of the dark New York night, hearing the same ruckus outside and seeing the same yellow glow of the streetlamp streaking in through the window, smelling the same musty apartment air, but always having my arms wrapped beautifully around Bella's warmth as it melded against mine.

I looked up and realised she was off the phone and standing in front of me. She was slightly hunched over, looking up at me curiously and trying to break my glazed-over expression. She giggled as my eyes noticeably came into focus and I smiled at her.

"So…" she sang and smiled widely, tapping her fingers against the side of her closed cell phone.

"So?" I questioned, but not really…already knowing the answer. I was also rearranging my budget to accommodate the healthier groceries we would be buying. I was fine with that, Bella deserved better than Ethiopian take-out, midnight hotdogs, and microwaveable pizza pockets.

"That was the Washington Post," she cooed, bouncing on her toes again, clearly over the moon.

_Oh._

I tried so fucking hard not to let my smile falter as the wave of disappoint smashed into me, I really did. I'm not sure if I was successful or not, but either way, Bella was too excited to notice. She really wanted a job with that paper. It was her first choice regardless of what she would be doing there. Unfortunately, I knew it also meant staying in Baltimore.

"They offered me a full-time copy-editing position. I didn't think they were going to be able to offer me anything full-time above coffee-gopher. Edward!" she screeched and thwacked my shoulder excitedly. "Oh my god, I can't believe it. I mean, copy-editing, meh." She shrugged and grimaced, but smiled at the same time. "But still, the Post and all their connections and, ya know…the freaking _Post_, so…" she broke of into another bout of squeals and bounces.

"That's great, baby, I'm so happy for you. I know how badly you wanted anything with them. But honestly, you have clearly spent way too much time with my sister this summer," I joked as I draped my arm around her shoulders and continued us along the path toward the baggage claim so that I could allow my smile to wash away for a moment and it would go unnoticed.

I mourned the pink sheets with the little daisies on them.

While disappointment radiated through me like sharp splinters, slicing things open and exposing everything I had deep inside me, I stifled it. I supported Bella. I told her repeatedly as we cleaned her townhouse in Baltimore after she had a tenant in there all summer, how thrilled I was for her. I Googled The Post and then talked excitedly about it over dinners.

I also registered myself in the appropriate programs and met with my dissertation advisors in preparation for the academic year to begin again in several weeks. Everything was shaping up to resume precisely where it had left off at the beginning of the summer–which, while it didn't involve girly daisy sheets, was far superior to being truly separated by thousands of miles and expensive plane rides.

As it was, I sat patiently on the foot of her bed with a familiar smile plastered on my face while she finished buttoning up a pale blue and grey pinstripe blouse and tucked it into her black pencil skirt. She zipped it up, turned it the right way around, and adjusted the shirt. She then bent down to grab a pair of black heels that were probably way more slutty-date-night than office-casual, but her outfit was incredibly conservative so if she really wanted to wear them, she could probably get away with it. Besides, her legs looked fucking amazing, so I doubted anyone would be complaining. She stood straight and smiled at me expectantly.

"What do you think?" She rested her delicate hands on her hips and shuffled a little. My smile broadened at the sight of the onyx ring on her right hand. And she was too impatient to let me actually answer her question. "I mean, obviously I will twist my hair up or something and I can wear some black nylons, because, I think this is a lot of leg..." She bent one leg at the knee and turned back to eye it as if she could actually tell anything from that contorted view of herself.

"You look perfect," I cut her off as the telltale rose crept slowly across her cheeks. That she could ever feel remotely vulnerable or shy in front of me was unfathomable. I chocked it up to nerves.

I stood and crossed the room, sliding passed her to the dresser. Opening the top of the little blue box she used to hold her jewellery, I retrieved the locket I had given her years before. She smirked at me as I came closer and obligingly spun around so her back faced me. I pulled her hair to the side so I could put it on and let it lay gently against her skin. Then, I reached for her right wrist. I slipped the hair elastic from it and tied her hair up off her shoulders.

I meant to kiss that little spot at the nape of her neck that I knew she liked, and I enjoyed just as much because somehow it seemed incredibly intimate even if it was just her neck. However, my lips pressed and refused to move. I had to breathe unsteadily through my nose and mash my eyelids closed to try and stamp back the emotion, tinged with frustration, tinged with every-fucking-other-thing imaginable as it forced it's way to the surface after being ignored for the last several days.

After way too long standing there, not touching her but for my lips, and not facing her, I finally tore myself away. I went and sat back at the foot of the bed just as silently as I had approached. Bella's eyes were so downcast they may have been closed. She drew her lower lip in between her teeth subconsciously and chewed. I lay my hands in my lap and waited. I knew what was coming next. After all, I had just laid all my cards out on the table with that kiss.

"I know you're disappointed," she whispered. "But are you mad?"

Oh. That was unexpected.

I rose quickly. "Isabella, are you kidding me?" I forced her to look at me when she refused. Holding her face in my hands, I kissed her in answer. The kiss was sweet, but it lacked a lot of the things that made us, _us_. She was still unsure I wasn't angry and she was holding back until she heard my answer.

"Of course I'm not angry, I have nothing to be angry about, Bella. Why, are _you_?" I asked after a few minutes of quiet contemplation, both of us just searching one another's eyes for things that were going unsaid.

"Why would I be mad?"

"Because I've done it again," I confessed, feeling horrible.

"Yeah, well...baby steps," she offered, trying to smile thoughtfully at me.

"Oh, so you didn't expect me to succeed all at once?" I joked.

"Not really. But only because you try too hard to protect me. You always have and now it's just a part of you. But it's a step that we're even having this conversation, so..." She shrugged and her smile lost the forced aspect and turned more genuine. I kissed the tip of her nose and smiled back, then flopped heavily and gracelessly back onto the bed, groaning dramatically.

"I'm sorry, Bella. I am disappointed. I shouldn't have tried to hide that from you. I just didn't want you to think I wasn't genuinely happy for you to get this job, I know how badly you wanted it."

"It's okay. Besides, you didn't hide it really. I can read you like a book, Cullen," she joked, coming to stand between my spread knees. My arms were bent with my head resting in my upturned palms, but I raised my head off of them enough to glance down at her and smile, shaking my head slowly before letting it fall backward again.

"I just really wanted you to come to New York. I know this is close but...its not..." What was I going to say, hot pink daisy sheets? Because that would make a lot of sense. Everything else was going to be a four-day conversation about all the things Baltimore was but yet still wasn't at the same time.

"I know." Bella pulled her skirt up over her knees and crawled up my legs on the bed. She straddled my waist and smiled down at me. And of course, she did know. I didn't actually have to explain anything. "I just didn't get offered anything decent in New York. And while I would love to live with you and mooch off of you for the next two years, I just can't, you know?"

"I know. I would never expect you to do that, Bella."

"Good, then that's all settled." She spoke with an obvious degree of finality as she yanked my shirt from the waistband of my charcoal grey trousers. I had just come from a meeting with my advisors where I spent the entire fifty-five minutes assuring them repeatedly that I _would _be handing in my final dissertation for doctorial approval sometime in the next academic year despite their suggestions that I try to set a more realistic timeline for myself. After all, they knew nothing of my real priorities. I would be meeting that deadline.

Bella pushed my shirt up and began trailing kisses along my abs, making me forget completely about all things Baltimore and snooty, doubting advisors. All I felt was the smooth, velvety feel of her lips and tongue sweeping against my skin.

"Now, how do I really look–you never answered me properly?" she asked, peeking up at me from under her lashes as her fingers made quick work of unfastening my pants.

"From this angle?" I moaned while her fingers intentionally brushed my hardening dick. "You look like office sex. And if you end up looking anything like this next Monday when and I am two hundred miles away then I will hunt you down."

"Funny guy..." she cooed softly while sitting up and tugging at my pants to get them over my hips.

"And don't you dare wear those shoes," I added as she ran her tongue up my length, just as a tease, and then climbed off the bed to pull my shoes and socks off. I kicked my pants the rest of the way off as she crawled back up the bed, the heels in question dangling from her fingertips.

"What, these?" She grinned as she flung a leg over my waist to straddle me again, her skirt hitching up around her hips, welcoming my dick with an incredible warmth that it very much enjoyed. "I wasn't really planning on it. I also plan on wearing panties." She winked at me, blushing at the same time…which was precisely why I loved her so fucking much. She dropped the heels and they thudded loudly on the old hardwood below.

I may have muttered a few obscenities as she began unbuttoning her shirt, astutely ignoring me. She pushed it off her shoulders so it fell against the tops of my thighs. Without looking up at me, her fingers worked my own buttons and I remained motionless, staring at her. Her cheeks still had a hint of pink on their apples, her lips were pressed into a tight line while she concentrated on what she was doing. There wasn't much light in the room and her hair was dark, her eyes were flat, and her fingertips kept distracting me as they brushed against my chest.

"Stop that. Why are you just staring at me?" she whispered without looking up. My shirt was unbuttoned and fell open. She leaned forward and rested her palms flat against my undershirt, keeping her eyes on them.

"I already told you. Because you're perfect."

Her eyes lifted and her cheeks darkened, making me smile even more, especially when she rolled her eyes at me predictably.

"I mean it, Bella." I pushed myself up to sit and pulled her tighter against me, which conveniently slid her centre along my already straining dick that was greedy and clearly didn't appreciate the romance of the situation. I tried my best to ignore it. Her hands slid up my chest and her fingertips tickled at the back of my neck, twisting into my hair. "You're so fucking perfect. You have no idea."

I wrapped my hands tight around her hips and lifted. She pushed up off her knees to help guide me and, after a silent exchange between our eyes that said more than words ever could, I resettled her, sliding smoothly inside her body. Just as my own eyes squeezed shut, awash with sensation, I noticed hers doing the same. Our moans were more like relieved sighs and they met one another somewhere in the middle of the small space between us. No matter how many times I had been inside her, making love with Bella was somehow powerful every single fucking time.

I didn't care that her skirt was still bunched up above her hips and she didn't seem to mind that I still had my undershirt on. We were connected everywhere that mattered, and for an indiscernible amount of time, we moved like that. Together, lifting and settling, pushing and pulling, rocking and shifting.

At some point, Bella pushed on my chest until I shimmied backward to the wall. She used it to better brace herself as she extended her arms straight above my shoulders and I leaned back against the wall comfortably. With my head relaxed back, I slid my palms underneath the soft skin of her ass, helping her move against me. My eyes were closed. I belatedly realised the slow trail she was making along my neck and under my jaw had stopped. I opened my eyes to find her rocked back, essentially sitting in my hands, and looking thoughtfully at me.

"What?" I could barely push the word out. I was out of breath. Sweat was dripping down my forehead and into my eyes, stinging them and matting my hair against my skin. Her apartment had no air conditioning and the combination of the stifling end of summer weather and our exertions made the room approximately four hundred degrees. Bella's face was just as pink and sticky as I imagined mine to be, and her own hair had wet strands that had either fallen or been tugged by me from the knot I had tied at the nape of her neck.

"Nothing. I'm just looking at you." In the setting sun I could still see her face well enough to notice how soft her eyes were and how sweet her smile was.

"Why? Because I was staring at you earlier?" The corner of my mouth lifted in a tired grin. I guided her hips softly with my hands in one full, slow circle, my eyes lowering slowly down her chest to her skirt and back up again, over the perfect pink nipples I knew so well and back to her eyes, which had hooded as the sensation rocked through her. I bit my own lip to quiet the feeling as it hit me too, curling my toes and making it almost impossible to keep hanging on.

"No. Just because," she whispered, her eyelids not seeming to remember how to open fully. "Because I can."

"Fair enough." I pulled my hands from underneath her and wrapped my arms around her body, forcing her against me so we could finish what we started with her as close as possible.

Her faint moans trickled into whimpers and I knew she was too close to have not fallen over the edge already. She was fighting it. I could only fight so long and I had about reached my limit. I twisted my hand into her messy knot of hair and pulled her head off my shoulder and back an inch to look at me, while softly cradling her opposite cheek in my other hand in an attempt to balance the force.

"What?" I panted desperately, the sound barely registering as a real word, but instead sounding more like an elongated whine.

"I would really like to marry you, Edward," she blurted out between breaths.

Instead of smiling at her sweet confession, my face twisted into something just shy of anger. It was a combination of fatigue, desperation, and frustration. "I tried to get you to marry me like two years ago, Isabella. Now shut up and come or you're not going to." I yanked her hips roughly forward and into me, driving myself deeper and giving her the friction that should have sent her into a tailspin given how close she was dangling.

She wailed in my ear and her forehead hit my shoulder, but she still fought against the wave. "Fine. How about in two years when all this shit is over? Do you think you can pencil me in, then?" She whimpered as she began to lose the fight, but held out a few seconds longer as I considered her words. In truth, I could appreciate the need for something concrete to hold onto at times. I had obviously had similar needs in the past. It was just her miserable timing I was objecting to.

"Yes, Bella, two years from fucking today, I promise. Please, baby..."

At the sound of my needy pleas and promises, while my voice cracked and my fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips, she shattered around me. Her body trembled beautifully in my arms and I fell immediately in line with her, trying, through the chaotic haze of our shared climax, to remember the date so I could keep my promise.

It was August thirteenth.

* * *

*hides binder behind back*

Nothing to see here...

*whistles*

(let's pretend I know how, which shamefully, I do not)

The next four chapters are outlined and can I just say how EXCITED I am to be getting to this stuff at long last.

SQUEEEEE with me, kay?

Love me!

Air

xox


	39. Pinned

So obviously this story isn't going to wrap up at 40 chapters as I initially thought. Damn kids just have a tale to tell, what can I say?

But we are getting there, almost...

This was one of those chapters that I just couldn't bring myself to post because it continually felt _off, _but alas, it is just me and I think you will find it up to par.

*crosses fingers*

Much has been written after this transition and so the ball continues to roll forward, no worries, please. This story never sees a day where it isn't worked on in some regard or another, so slower updates does not mean a hiatus, it just means something ins't quite right and I am working on it. Trust. But never ever hesitate to PM, review, or tweet me...you know where to find me, my blackberry is superglued to my palm so I am always available.

On that note, it has killed me with all the FFN fail not being able to reply to all the amazing reviews that have recently been left for me. Please know that I read every word and lave all over it. They warm my heart and I truly connot express my level of gratitude.

Okay, end longest A/N ever and sappy, preggo rant.

Just enjoy the public fornication...Wait, wha...?

*wicked smile*

* * *

I was almost certain my man-card could be revoked for what I was planning, but whatever...the things I was okay doing when it involved love. _My _love.

_Revoked. _

I smiled silently to myself and shook my head as I lit the single candle. It stood in the middle of the mountainous piece of decadent lava cake I brought home from Sorso on way from Penn Station.

_Home._

Sorso was Bella's favourite little coffee shop where she managed to log an insane amount of time whenever I wasn't in town, hunched over her laptop with a half eaten pastry and an endless array of coffee cups nearby. She now knew the owners and all the wait staff in the small cafe as well as everything about them. They seemed to adore her there–which I could definitely appreciate–and Bella felt the same, given their wide array of desserts and freshly that lured her into staying until they gently kicked her out with her laptop under her arm every night.

That she was working so hard at a position I was almost certain she would have never taken had it not been for me, for _us_, made my entire heart flood. I felt indebted. And grateful. It was manageable only because I was certain that, by some grace of the fates, I was able to make Bella feel the same way.

I messaged her from the train earlier in the day to let her know I was on my way into town. She had just come home from work and said that she would be in the bath because her neck and back were stiff from sitting at her desk all day. While I felt bad that her muscles ached, this happened to work out perfectly for me, so I was okay with it. I could always see to it that I made her feel better later on.

The little candle atop the chocolate mound flickered as I padded barefoot up the stairs, sheltering the flame with my hand so it wouldn't blow out. The bathroom door was open and I could already smell the sugary-coconut scent that was distinctly Isabella as I neared the top of the stairs. My smile broadened. Funny how three bites of chocolate launched me headlong into a migraine, the mere _suggestion _of dessert usually made me nauseous, yet the sweet smell of her bath products somehow delighted my soul.

"Happy birthday to you..." I began in a low voice, hoping I wouldn't startle her as I entered the bathroom, slowly pushing the door open wider with the tip of my foot. The lights were off and she had some old jazzy stuff playing from the iPod in her bedroom. The candle light bounced off every shiny surface in the room and winked atop the blanket of water that covered her.

She peeled the wet washcloth from her eyes and sat up, sloshing the water around a little. Her face was splotchy red from the heat and the cloth, her hair was tied in a wet knot at the nape of her neck, and her make-up hadn't been removed before getting into the tub so she had black smears under her eyes as she blinked up at me, smiling. She was perfect. She was glowing. It could have been the effect of the small flame, but I doubted it. It was the reflection of everything I had ever loved from the moment she was put on the Earth.

She began giggling and I figured I was off the hook for having to finish the rest of the song before I got to the high parts, which my shoddy singing voice would never register without cracking. I kneeled down beside the tub and placed the little square plate with the warm cake on the side. Her smile was infectious.

"Technically, it's not my birthday until tomorrow, Edward," she whispered, eyeing the cake more than me with affectionate eyes. I couldn't help but laugh at her.

"I know. But it's your birthday weekend, so why not?" I shrugged and smiled back. Her expression immediately hardened.

"Edward, you promised..."

"Yeah, yeah," I cut her off, waving my free hand in the air before she could launch into another rant about how I spent too much money on her. I was still plotting my revenge on my meddling little sister for that one. "This cake cost seven-fifty so...shut it." I leaned in and kissed her, careful to keep one hand on the plate so I didn't knock it in the water.

"And that's it?" she coerced sternly, throwing my signature eyebrow stare back at me.

"Scout's honour." I held up a palm to illustrate.

Bella's wet little fingers lifted out of the pink water and folded several of mine down until I was displaying what was apparently the proper hand gesture if one actually belonged to the Scouts. "You were never even a boy scout," she giggled, returning her hands back to the tub.

I shrugged. "I still promise. I didn't buy you anything for your damn birthday besides this piece of cake. And I feel shitty about it, in case you were wondering." I did my best to glare at her sourly.

"I wasn't. But I suppose you could always finish the song if it will help you feel better."

"I don't feel _that_ bad," I joked, splashing her with my Boy-Scout hand.

"Hey, watch the cake, buddy, it's all my lame boyfriend got me for my twenty-fifth birthday," she giggled and scooted far away from me into a corner of the tub, eyeing me cautiously as my face twisted angrily at her.

I don't think I had ever seethed quite so much at her as I did in that moment. This highly amused her. Her laughing escalated.

"I'm just kidding, it's perfect, Edward. It's all I need, honest. Well, that and...maybe a fork." She mashed her lips together a tried to stifle the extended snickering while scooting back toward me.

"Shit, I forgot a fork." I pushed off the tub to stand and get one but she snagged my wrist before I could and pulled me back to my knees.

"It's fine," she assured me. She broke off a little piece of the chocolate madness and popped it into her mouth, humming and closing her eyes in total bliss. "See? Perfect." She had an overly satisfied smile as she savoured it.

"Please don't leave me for this cake," I begged in jest as she opened her eyes and broke off another piece, releasing the chocolate goo in the centre to pour uninhibited across the plate. Her eyes lit up and I thought maybe I wasn't joking half as much as I originally thought I was. She really might leave me for an endless supply of warm lava cake if it were an option.

Bella finished off the dessert while I rest my cheek against the cool porcelain and watched happily. Then, I licked her fingers clean for her. I figured it was the least I could do since I withheld both song and fork, and apparently had to prove my worth over a gooey chocolate adversary. She didn't seem to mind my continued oversights. In fact, I hadn't even finished the small task of cleaning her off before she hurriedly leapt from the tub without draining it and shoved me backward into her bedroom for more.

Much later, it took every ounce of reserved energy I had to formulate the words to tell her what a stubborn brat she was, but I managed to force them out.

"Food is sustenance, Bella, it hardly counts as a gift. You're being ridiculous." The words floated lazily out into the room as I pled my case to be allowed to take her to dinner the following evening.

My eyes were closed. Bella was curled around me. Blankets were all shoved off the bed and in a heap somewhere on the floor–where exactly I couldn't be bothered to care. My fingers slid up and down her bare arm and I could feel her breath as it slowly blew out in slow repetition against my chest. The jazzy music was still cycling through the playlist and it filled the bedroom as we lay there drifting off together.

"It counts," she whispered, teetering on oblivion herself. Her words were nearly drowned out by the brassy trills of a beat trumpet.

"Irritating." I breathed the word with much effort. My every fibre was already fuzzy with sleep.

"I love you, too."

"Happy birthday, Isabella," I whispered and managed to lift my head and coordinate my hand enough to sweep back her hair from her cheeks and kiss her goodnight, even though it was already well into the morning hours given the slow, thorough way we had made love earlier.

I may have heard her thank me before sleep washed me away completely, but I couldn't have been sure.

Since Bella failed to turn off her daily alarm that was set for six AM on her cell phone, Saturday morning began with a high-pitched trill that burrowed directly into the centre of my brain only hours after Friday night had officially ended. Bella had managed to fall asleep completely astride me as I lay flat on my back with one arm thrown haphazardly over my eyes. She quickly rolled away and squirmed under the pillow beside me half-asleep and seeking refuge. She lay on her stomach and expertly tuned out the shrill squeal that seemed to be on a never-ending loop coming from the bedside table right fucking beside her.

How she was capable of that kind of insanity I would never understand, but she did it to me all the time. It drove me nuts. The second an alarm began sounding my every nerve-ending was bristled into annoyance until the source met its much-earned death. I growled at her as I begrudgingly threw my body over hers toward the noise.

I lay flat against her, my bare midsection pressed into the exposed small of her back with all my weight pushed against her. She didn't seem to notice. She was probably fast asleep again. I hit buttons blindly on the screaming little device and grumbled under my breath, dropping it ungraciously back to the tabletop with a loud thud once it finally shut the hell up. I had no idea if it was going to go off again in a matter of minutes, but was so relieved that it was no longer beating against the inside of my brain, I paid it no further thought.

Before I pulled back to the warmth of the bed I caught sight of my messenger bag on the floor leaning against the table. I looked back at Bella's head where it disappeared underneath her pillow and smiled wickedly. She deserved to be woken up.

Digging my hand blindly into the front flap of my bag, I eventually retrieved the contents. I pulled back to the bed, hovering lightly over her body. I took a moment just to smile down at her, appreciating what little of her creamy, perfect skin I could see from my vantage point. It looked soft–which I already knew to be true. I brushed the backs of my fingers along her shoulder blade just to make sure.

My knees framed her upper left thigh and my palms pressed into the mattress just beneath the pillow, caging her in as I lowered myself against her. She shimmied a little, her ass wiggling appetizingly against me, so I knew she was still awake. I bowed my head down to the pillow and nudged it, forcing my mouth into its trapped heat and against the lower portion of her ear. My lips brushed against her neck as I spoke.

"Pinned you," I murmured lowly, quoting our favourite Disney movie from when we were kids. I heard a muffled giggle mixed with a groan of annoyance, and then she squirmed again, rubbing herself against me intentionally in a way that she was going to pay for.

I dropped the package on the top of the pillow, letting it dully hit the back of her head through the cushioned protection.

"Ow," she whined, drawing out the word as she reached up and pulled the pillow from the back of her head, smashing it into my face before tossing it to the side.

She was still pinned beneath me but managed to get up onto her elbows to look for what had assailed her. One look and she was immediately scowling, though the vibrancy that shone behind her eyes overshadowed her facade of annoyance.

"You promised!" she shrieked and shoulder checked me, drawing her lower lip between her teeth and pressing softly.

I was too tired. She was too close. I was more mesmerised by the small movement of pink lips against teeth less than an inch from my own mouth than I ordinarily would have been. She knew.

She released her lip and smiled coyly at me. I was sure her eyes were shining with amusement, except that I couldn't be bothered to look up at them.

I dipped my head down the short distance between us, and before my lips could meet hers, I let my tongue reach out and touch, from the underside of her full lower lip, over the plush curve and down into the warm, wet dip into her mouth. Her breath blew out over my lips and she made a sort of strangled noise that sounded like a cry but wasn't. I vaguely registered the sharp feel fingernails scratching somewhere near my hips.

Some times. Some moments. They were just like that.

The annoying second hand on the clock in her bedroom, the one that was normally so loud it made me wince every time it twitched–it stopped moving. The bustle outside quieted. The air hung still and suspended, thick and comforting, like a blanket around us. Her breathing and its unsteady, reassuring rhythm dominated my awareness and everything ceased but her and I and the moment.

I never knew when the weight of a moment like that was going to crash down on me. But I never failed to appreciate its beauty, its gift. My lips wrapped so slowly around hers it was both pain and bliss all at once. Her elbow buckled and she dropped several inches to the bed.

The second hand ticked again and the air moved, but it was too late. We were already committed. Bella rolled to her back without separating her mouth from mine. I lifted one arm to allow her the room to turn around fully and resettle beneath me. My knee met her inner thigh and pushed. My palms pressed into the mattress while my body lowered. Her fingers tugged at my hair and her hips slackened, trusting, knowing, loving.

"Happy birthday," I whispered without retracting my lips from hers.

"Thank you," she breathed back, the tip of her tongue meeting the underside of my upper teeth as she did so. We were that close.

And then physical communication picked up where our words died off. We were just as fluent at the practiced language and we made love flawlessly. That time, as in every other time. We gave pieces of ourselves to one another over and over again. Pieces that we had never and would never share with anyone else. For that reason alone, Bella and I were bound tighter than our mind's could ever fathom. We let our hearts and our souls guard that grip. They would never fail us.

Afterward, when I was certain she had fallen asleep again, curled in front of me on our sides with my arm draped over her hip and cupped firmly under her other one, she surprised me by speaking quietly. I breathed her in as she spoke. My eyelashes brushing against the soft skin of her shoulder, my lips touching places innocently.

"Don't think you can get yourself off the hook with mind-blowing sex, Edward."

I snorted in her ear. The sex _was _fucking mind-blowing. When initiated from those stilled moments in time, the sex was always incredible. Deeper somehow. We panted faster. Coiled tighter. Released fuller. Screamed louder. Loved harder. It was unparalleled.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I whispered back, though of course, I did.

"You promised."

"I kept my promise," I vowed. I pressed my lips quietly to the back of her neck. She was sticky and salty and tasted perfect. She spun around to face me, her hand sliding in a mirror of my own, over my hip holding me to her. Her big eyes blinked up at me suspiciously. "Okay, fine. I think I spent like a dollar fifty on the ribbon." I kissed the tip of her nose as she wrinkled it up at me, ending the debate.

I fished around behind me for the objects I had abandoned earlier, and brought them to rest in between us, balancing on our hips. They were three tattered brown paperbacks tied together beautifully with a cream satin bow. After she unbound them she realised what I meant. They were decades old journals with yellowed pages and tattered leather bindings. The edges of the thin parchment paper were dipped in a metallic robin's egg blue and they were completely empty. I had found them amongst a stack of old bargain-bin books at a used book store somewhere in Hoboken. They were donated, unpriced, and the clerk, in good conscience, couldn't come up with an amount that was fair to charge me, so in the end, I walked away with them for free. I would have paid for them anyway, but at least that way I _technically _kept my promise.

"You have like three pages left in your other one," I explained as she ran her fingers adoringly down the cover of the buttery-soft, ancient leather.

"Wait! You read my journal?" she gasped, smacking my arm with the books. It was still dusty. The particles flickered in the dawning rays coming in through the tiny window and the skylight above, swirling around us.

I laughed at her horrified expression. "No. But I can see where the little bookmark string thingy is and it's right at the end. Geez," I rubbed my bicep and scowled playfully at her. "Maybe I _should_ read it though, judging from your reaction. What kind of good shit do you write in there?"

She blushed but said nothing, narrowing her eyes and me.

"And I didn't get charged for those, for the record," I added with a smirk, knowing I had her beat.

"Thank you," she eventually whispered. Her voice was quiet and thick. Her eyes were downcast and her mind seemed to drift somewhere else entirely for a brief moment, but I didn't ask where, if she wanted to tell me should would.

I blinked and nodded silently at her and she slowly climbed from the bed and padded her completely naked little ass into the bathroom. I heard her turn on the shower and brush her teeth, but somewhere after that I fell asleep contentedly, not waking until it was barely considered morning any longer.

As juvenile as it was, we spent the rest of the day at the park. We brought a lunch and a kite and ate on the top of a big grassy knoll looking out toward the water. We flew the kite, running barefoot through the lush grass. The sun shone directly, but the wind blew up off the cool water and Bella's hair sparkled almost as much as her rosy little cheeks and her vibrant smile. We ran together until we could barely breathe, trying to keep the silly, three-dollar plastic contraption in the air as we climbed the hills. It drooped and we ran faster.

By the end of the afternoon we were so worn out we could hardly move. We collapsed onto our backs, far away from the old quilt we still had thrown at the top of the hill. We were laying midway up the hill, at an incline, facing the boardwalk where people strolled casually, roller-bladed, and walked their dogs, enjoying, just as Bella and I were, the warmth of those last few days of summer. East-coasters appreciated the seasons more than we seemed to in our Pacific Ocean-cushioned climate out West. Here, they knew all too well how cold and bitter it was about to become. It made the lazy warmth that much more precious. We basked in it.

We lay flat on our backs, arms tucked neatly under our heads, bare toes reflecting the sun as they wiggled against one another. Our dirty feet tangled together. We watched in content silence as big ships rolled in and out of the harbour. There was a short wooden pier somewhere beyond the next hill and smaller, recreational crafts came and went just as frequently. The clouds were big and white and puffy and the entire day was perfection...and _free_, thus keeping me safe from reprimand. The idea made me laugh under my breath and Bella's head lolled heavily to the side to inspect me. Her eyes were hooded in the golden light and her smile was soft and small, questioning without actually asking.

"I was just congratulating myself at having abided by your rules for the day," I murmured. Her eyes narrowed, immediately distrustful. She knew me well.

"Edward," she drawled out lowly in warning. She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. Her hair fell down her back and the sun was behind her, shading her features as she looked at me, wary. I smiled wide, feeling the left side of my mouth lift higher than the right, creating the crooked smile I couldn't really control but knew she loved.

Her eyes narrowed further but her smile broadened. Her cheeks flushed and she shoved me firmly in the shoulder, much to my own amusement and her heightened agitation. I burst out laughing. An agitated Bella was a really fucking adorable Bella as far as I would always be concerned. She failed miserably at delivering a true stink-eye and her cheeks blushed to belie her facade. She always ended up scoffing at herself and throwing her hands up in the air in resignation and laughing along with me at her futile attempts to be stern. But bless her for trying. I deserved the look. I had found a loophole in her stipulations and unapologetically took advantage.

"What?" I asked with indignation that I didn't really feel.

"I don't know, Edward." She spat my name as if it were an insult, in a cute way. "Why don't you tell me? What did you do?" She sat up and crossed her arms, still attempting to break me with what I'm sure she thought was her fiercest look. I loved her too much. I couldn't catch my breath I was giggling too hard. She planted her spread palms against my side and huffed, trying to push me the rest of the way down the hill as she swore mildly at me.

After a few minutes of rolling around in the grass where I thoroughly demonstrated both my ability to trap her firmly to the ground and my willingness to be captured, we stopped tussling. I was bent over her menacingly, though the soft look I always had for her countered the position nicely. I lowered my mouth to her ear. "Pinned you again," I purred in a dark whisper and then sat upright at her knees. She giggled at the follow-up reference to the movie I quoted earlier as I gently removed the dried grass from her hair. I left a smudge of dirt on her cheek that she didn't know was there purely for my own continued enjoyment.

Her eyes were dubious.

"Consider it a Christmas gift, then," I offered. I could see the wheels turning in her quick brain.

"Plane tickets home?"

"Yep. I already called your office to plan around when they said the best time for you to take a week off around the holidays would be. So, technically, _not _a birthday gift. Though, I do wish you would stop being so unreasonable. As if it's a crime to buy you a little something to celebrate you being brought into the world."

She began to sputter and gesture wildly at her right hand, where the black ring took up permanent residence, while choking on her own words. The only things I could clearly make out were, "little" and "absurd".

"Oh, shut up." I silenced her with a finger pressed against her lips, which I quickly replaced with my own.

After the sun lowered itself over the horizon and the sky was that odd combination of fiery red and black that is distinctly a late summer sky, Bella and I left our blanket, kite, and empty picnic basket on the grassy hilltop and went for a walk around the waterfront hand in hand. It was quiet. It was peaceful. Eventually, we walked down the rickety metal gangway as it groaned and swayed beneath us toward the lower pier. We sat with our bare feet hanging off the edge.

There was something about the darkening, purple-tinged skies, the lapping sound of water all around us, and the stillness that wasn't really still at all and was actually only an outward perception... My body was wrapped with warmth at how much I loved the beautiful, vulnerable yet strong girl beside me. It all reminded me of our summers as kids spent at the lake house–with one glaringly obvious distinction. Once the sky blackened fully and the people above faded, shrouded in darkness against the wooden promenade of the lower pier, I made love to Bella in a tangle of shoved aside clothing and her body wrapped around mine. It was a perfect end to her day.

"Shit. How… How do you always do that so fast," Bella panted with what were not really words and more just waves of breath against my neck and ear at one point as an orgasm ripped through her moments after I first entered her.

"Because I know you," was my only answer.

Of course, it also had a lot to do with knowing that we were in a highly compromising position out in public and had little time for pleasantries. Still, there was truth behind the words. I knew her. Inside and out. Not just that she liked dark chocolate cake and lazy days under the sunshine. I knew her heart. And I knew her body. I knew that breathy promises of our future and my broken, panting voice in her ear telling her how much I fucking loved her and needed her with everything I had, would send her over the edge immediately. That…and a properly positioned pad of my thumb. And so she shattered around me, burrowing her face into the crook of my neck and shoulder to muffle her cries.

After Isabella's birthday, time wore on and nothing discernibly noteworthy happened short of a brief but comforting trip home for Christmas. This sense of routine in itself was significant. It meant Bella and I were content. Beyond content, even. Bella and I had fallen into a very comfortable practice that involved work-weeks and train rides and relaxing weekends spent in blissful isolation. While we didn't always hole up in one of our apartments, we still had the air of seclusion around us even when the environment teemed and bustled past, whirling and blurring together. We were just a small piece of the vibrancy. We were impervious more often than not when together and the happiness that radiated inside propelled us through the four or five days that we usually had to spend apart in the middle of the week.

Bella continued to work hard. Late hours at the minimum wage desk job that was a long hour train ride away. Then, because she was apparently a masochist, extra hours bowed over her laptop at Sorso until one or the other of the old Italian married couple who owned the cafe would sit down across from her and give her a gentle, yet pointed look. Bella would shriek, and gasp, and look at the clock on her cell as if she had forgotten that such a constricting thing as time existed in the first place. She would apologise profusely and promise to keep better track of the hours the following night, thanking them, and scampering off still zipping her bag closed as she stumbled through the pinging doorway.

I had seen the whole exchange for myself several times whenever we both had work we needed to accomplish over the weekend and did so inside the pleasant little shop. The owners would lean against the counter and cross their arms, waving and smiling fondly after her, knowing they would repeat the scene all over again regardless. Their eyes were always soft. Bella probably reminded them of a daughter or granddaughter of theirs. Either way, it was obvious that they didn't mind her quiet company.

As for myself, I slowly chipped away at the mountain of work that was my fragmented dissertation, piecing it back together after the previous year had seen my advisors tear it apart without mercy. I was able to focus with a renewed sense of confidence and empowerment, thriving from my happiness and my purpose. Every paragraph I wrote felt like a baby step closer to a solid life with Isabella. A life where, regardless of where and what she decided to do, I knew I would be able to provide for us while caring for others. It was the same solid foundation of goodwill my father had built and based his life around, and I was proud of my choice to follow in his footsteps–with only the slight variance that I would primarily be overseeing my patient's mental well-being rather than their physical. Though, technically, the two were so deeply intertwined in my specific area of focus, that they would be inseparable. In fact, as a medical psychologist, I would probably end up holding office hours in a hospital rather than a downtown sky rise.

We coasted on our peace of mind. That is, until one day, late into the spring when Bella sat down in front of me, perching awkwardly on the edge of her coffee table, placing something I hadn't bothered to take note of behind her back, out of my line of sight. Her hands were folded nervously in her lap and she worried at her lip. The moment my eyes lifted from my laptop and saw her I was on full alert. I could read her like an open book and she was practically screaming with stifled anxiety. My nerve-endings lit on fire immediately.

Somewhere, some_thing _in the back of my mind had been nagging at me that it was all too good to be true–that we were too happy and the final puzzle pieces of our lives were falling into place too easily after so many years of heartache.

My brain had a known tendency to hyperventilate and implode on itself, so the screaming voice was always ignored. I refused to ever allow it to tarnish my bliss with Bella or to invade my true consciousness. But then she sat there, picking at her fingernails and chewing on her lip. Her eyes wouldn't meet mine. I was uncomfortable waiting for her to speak, even though I had long since handed over every reservation I ever had and trusted Bella to never hurt me. Yet, without seeing into her eyes, I had no way of knowing which way to allow my mind to run.

I sat my laptop on the couch cushion beside me and, while I didn't mean to, my lips hardened into a flat line and my heart rate accelerated. I was incredibly impatient to hear whatever it was she was about to say.

She knew I was waiting. My fingers strummed silently against the sides of my thighs.

A deep shaky breath later, she blinked at the floor between us and then steeled herself. Her eyes seemed to take forever and I was teetering down the centre of two paths wondering... When the big brown depths finally met mine my mind knew immediately which path this entire production was headed down as I read them. It was something soft. I was sure that what I had first interpreted as anxiety was really just excitement of some sort. My heart rate slowed and my features eased as she spoke.

"I've been keeping something from you."

_Oh._

* * *

OH!

Trust me?

Love me?

*backs away slowly*

~xox~


	40. Defiance

Ohai there...are you still with me?

If you know me, follow me, bbm me, or in any way have any idea about my real life, then you know I have been struggling with some medical-type issues with my daughter. This delay was unintentional but you have to realise nothing is more important than her.

With that said...

Just a quick little word about this story. For anyone who is upset that it doesn't seem to be 'going anywhere'….yeah, that's because it's not. I have a pretty good idea (given my proud ff h00r status) of what 'anywhere' means. Don't get me wrong, the plot has been meticulously and painstakingly calculated. However, this story, while far from stagnant, is a tale of love and life and the journey it takes sometimes to get to the end. So that is what we are all doing here. Letting these characters tell their story from beginning…to end. The end, I pray, will be worth the travels.

Finally: OH MY GAWD THANK YOU EVERYONE!

This story is winding down, it's true. But you guys continue to blow my fucking mind, no joke, with your love, reviews, tweets, forums etc etc down the list of social medias that I don't even know about lol. I love you. I read everything you send me. I whoop and fist pump over it. I'm not even ashamed.

Now where were we? Oh yes, balanced on the edge of our seats.

xox

* * *

I had gathered enough from Bella's eyes and her expression that I wasn't afraid..._exactly_. Though I wouldn't, by any stretch of the imagination, say that I was calm. Not that I was usually the type of insecure guy who could be easily spooked, but everything surrounding Bella had the potential to destroy me in an instant. I wasn't so naïve that I didn't appreciate this. Her health, her safety, her proximity, her love...

_Her love. _

I couldn't possibly have more faith in any one thing than I had in our love for one another. It was concrete. It was the glue holding me together while I waited. And waited.

With effort, I parted my lips that had been clamped together nervously in a hard line and exhaled a breath I wasn't consciously holding, trying to think of anything _but _whatever it was that she could have been keeping from me. My patience really was horrid even when I tried my best to work on it. I tried to blink to bide the time, but that was as far as it could be extended.

I raised an eyebrow at her as she sat stiffly perched less than six inches across from me on the very edge of the coffee table. Our eyes stayed locked for a few absolutely silent minutes–or hours, it was all the same to me. Mine narrowed. Penetrated. Questioned. Hers smiled. Softened. And then finally, rolled.

"Oh, Edward, don't be so dramatic," she sighed, knocking her knee into mine playfully to loosen me up.

"Me!" I scoffed, surprised by how dry my entire throat had become so quickly. Was she serious?

I leaned to the side trying to look around her at whateverthehell she was hiding while calling _me _dramatic. I could just make out the corner of a box before she moved to block me, smiling obnoxiously. I may have glowered. She knew better.

"Okay, fine," she relented, and then twisted to reach behind her. My eyes were steeled against her hands as they disappeared briefly at her back and then reappeared, holding the flat box. It was about the size of a laptop, beautiful, cream-coloured with shiny red letters elegantly embossed onto the top and a red satin ribbon tied across it, the tails pooling in her lap.

I didn't have a chance to read what was written on the front of the box before Bella balanced it upright on her knees, hiding it from me. She smiled, waiting for me to relax and look at her before she continued. I complied, and with effort, placed my eager hands in my lap and clasped them together, when truthfully, all I wanted to do was rip the box from her and tear it open feverishly. I smiled tightly.

"You're not fooling anybody, you know that right?" she whispered stifling a giggle, clearly amused with me.

"What's in the goddamn box, Isabella?"

Patience…depleted.

I later regretted those words.

Or maybe not the words, precisely, but my urgency to reveal the box's contents. It couldn't be undone and my harsh tone was proven completely inappropriate. I mentally kicked myself for hours, wishing I could take it back.

My fingers trembled much later as I turned over the final piece of paper and gently lay it on top of the overturned stack next to me. I sighed long and hard, scooped up the papers, straightened them, and returned them carefully to the bottom half of the creamy box.

Despite my heart being wrenched in a hundred different directions, I couldn't help the proud smile that stretched across my face at seeing the first sheet on top of the stack again. Bella's name, typed simply and beautifully at the bottom of the page. The author. I carefully pulled the first sheet off again, and, because I was a masochist, reread the opening words in the prologue of what would soon become Bella's first widely-published work.

_I wish that I were never ill. I wish that illness didn't __even have a place in this w__orld. That families would never __be __devastated, torn apart, bereaved. That parents' never buried their own children and that mother's were never torn, with bleeding, aching hearts__ and desperate clutching fingers__ from their __babies__. _

_But what can I do? Sickness is real. Some of us fall. __F__alling hurts. _

_Beyond wishing that I were never ill, I have a great many other wishes that I would give anything to have granted. Selfish wishes. __And some...n__ot so selfish wishes. _

_I would do anything, give anything, pay any__ sum__ to be able to say with real words all that I need to say__ to you, my baby, my only daughter, that I am regretably attempting to say__ with this pen instead. To be able to speak to you, in person when the time is right. _

_I wish that I could hold your hand every time __you need __advice, and stroke your cheek and smile reassuringly when you doubt the wisdom in __the__ words__ I would offer__, as daughters' inevitably do. I wish that I could pet your hair and wipe your eyes when you are sad. I would both cherish and loathe the sound of your sobs. And I would hold you…my arms already ache with longing and yet I have not officially __gone anywhere__. But I will. Soon. And somewhere, my arms will continue to pulse with their loss, with your warmth, with the soothing, peaceful sensation that only having you close to me can __instill inside, warming me to the core__.__ Until they hold you again they will forever feel incomplete. You are a piece of me. The very best piece of me. My greatest accomplishment. And every ounce of me will be half empty without you. _

_I wish that I could tuck that stubborn strand of hair behind your right ear again as it falls forward when you speak, play, and eat. I wish that I could chuckle at the syrup__ that is always__ stuck to it__. Or the __mud, or tears__, or whatever the case may be__…because that is life. I long to hear with my own ears the sound of your mature voice and to know whether or not you ever stopped biting your nails no matter how many times I gently scolded you for it. Is pink still your favourite colour, or is that too childish? Have you learned to take the time to lace up your sneakers before running off to play, or have you tripped some more? Was anyone there to catch you? Did you feel me near, brushing the dirt from your knees? I was there. _

_There is so much I have yet to offer you. I was put on this Earth purely to create and __nurture__ you and yet__,__ in a cruel twist of fate__,__ I am being removed far too early never knowing if I have succeeded in my task. _

_Be gentle, dear child. You have such a wholesome heart and strong soul. __Your vibrancy__ pulses beneath your surface and everyone around you, __especially __those who love you, can __all __see it shine in everything that you do__ and are__. Stay pure. Stay sweet. Your future is boundless and you are the kind of person whom others will admire greatly. I know, for I have admired you from the very beginning. Your smile is soft and intoxicating. Your eyes are limitless and offer great promises. I see them with clarity and I pray that you do as well. Realise them.__ That's why they are there. They are a gift. And they are all yours. _

_I wish nothing more than to be able to carry you against my chest and shelter you for the rest of your days, for pressed against me I feel no harm could__ ever find you__. You are safe. _

_I cannot do that. And sadly, I will be what you will need sheltering from most. The pain of severance will be insurmountable and I will not be there to cushion it or comfort you. It breaks everything inside me to know that I will be leaving you soon and leaving you hurting. It goes against ev__ery grain that I have as a mother,__ and yet, I am utterly powerless to stop this train wreck or to shield you from it. Find comfort in my words, my memory, and those around you. And in the little brown stuffed dog that I bought for you from a drug store one day that has somehow become your favourite toy. As it sits on your pillow, then gets moved to your dresser, and one day, to a shoebox or closet, please know that no matter how far away some things travel, they will never leave our hearts, where they have made their home.__ I am there. Always. _

_This is all I have to offer you. My words. On paper. A cold and spiritless substitute for the life together we are being __denied__. For the memories we will lack and the laughter we will never __share__. For the times you were supposed to stomp up the stairs and slam your door __on me, __and the day I was supposed to watch your father walk you down the aisle__ to a man who, no matter who he is, will never truly deserve you, but I hope he comes close. _

_The gift of a lifetime is gone. I can only offer you this sheet of paper. For that, I am so, immeasurably sorry. _

_Please, baby, know that I love you more than anyone has ever loved you. More than anyone will ever love you. My love is the purest, the most truly unconditional that God could ever design. I created you. I knew you first. I loved you first. I will love you last. Always. _

_It is all I have to give to you._

_Love, Mommy_

I blinked back the burn in my eyes.

How Bella had the strength…

How she could… When I couldn't even...

She amazed me. Daily. Hourly. Always.

It took me hours to read beyond the prologue containing the verbatim first page straight from Renée's first journal to Bella. Every chapter alternated in perspective, bouncing gracefully between a dying mother's wishes and the memories, love, and life of the daughter who was left behind. It was still a work in progress, yet it was more than two-thirds complete and evident that it would be a masterpiece.

It was crafted artfully. It flowed brilliantly. The tales told in the intermediary chapters between Renée's words were captivating and witty. They held such promise and genuine beauty that I would bargain even a perfect stranger would feel connected to the writer and shed tears for her pains and triumphs. As it was, at certain points, I had to unapologetically wipe my cheeks and walk away for a moment to collect myself.

I didn't say a word to Bella while I read. She didn't ask me to and I didn't feel the need. I was immersed. It was a life I was familiar with. They were stories I lived. They were secrets I knew. Words I had read before… Yet somehow, strung together into such a poignant and brilliant tale, the body of them became more powerful than anything I had ever read.

Bella's eyes watched and followed me. She wept with me though she had no way of knowing the exact words I was reading from where she sat at the bottom of the stairs across the room.

I replaced the top piece of paper onto the stack for the second time, knowing my cheeks were streaked but not remembering how to move my hands to wipe them. I blinked and stared at the top page.

_Gifted, a __collaboration __by Isabella and René__e__ Swan_

"This is what you have been working on at night?" I asked. My voice was cracking and parched, dry from inactivity and tight with emotion.

It wasn't really a question, but when she didn't reply I pulled my eyes from the box in front of me and sought hers through the railings of the staircase banister. She nodded slowly, solemn.

My lips parted and re-parted a hundred times creating no sound. After reading such powerful words, such beautiful arrangements, and such intimate tales, I had no idea how to organise my own thoughts into speech. I didn't even feel like I should have the right to speak–to string together something inarticulate and undeserving following such refinement.

I shook my head and sighed, dragging my hand through my hair that was surely standing on end after hours of tugging and holding my head as I read.

"You don't have to say anything," she offered in a quiet voice. Her eyes were honest. She wasn't telling me not to compliment her; she was saying that she already knew everything it was that I couldn't even figure out how to say myself. That she was amazing. That she was beautiful. That her words were heart-wrenching and yet, awe-inspiring. The tale she told was brilliant and that, above all else, I loved her. I loved her, remarkably, even more for having the courage to create such a piece of honest perfection. "I wanted to show it to you earlier but…I don't know… I wasn't sure what was going to come of it, if anything, or how far I could get in it. I just… I don't know… But then there's this lady, at work, Tracey–doesn't matter, she's important and has a lot of connections–anyway, I told her around Christmastime that I had this idea of something to do with my mom's journals, and she's helped me ever since. She has a lot of publishing contacts and she's been reading what I write every few chapters as I finish it. I think I can actually do something with this with her help so…" Her words trailed off silently and she looked down at her toes as they shuffled against the wooden stairs, her cheeks flushing slightly. She bit her lip.

I remembered the piece in the prologue where Renée wondered if she would ever stop biting her nails and I smiled dismally to myself. After she passed away, Bella never bit her nails again, knowing how much her mother despised the dirty habit. Shortly after, she began chewing on her lip instead.

I was still scrounging for words, coming up short, and chasing my own mind and heart in circles trying to formulate something worthy of being uttered. But I was on my feet and across the room in seconds after Bella tore her eyes from mine, feeling the separation strongly and wanting to be nearer.

I knelt at the foot of the stairs just below her. Her big brown eyes looked up and met mine and she offered me the tiniest smile I had ever seen. I swallowed audibly in the silent room and pushed back the hair from the sides of her face to hold her head in my palms. I was immediately comforted by the weight, the heat, and the substance. Her lips were still twisted up in a small smile, the left side more so than the right, puckering her cheek at the bone and squinting her eye. She looked young. Like the little girl huddled in the back of my mother's pantry throwing her shiny, patent-leather dress shoes at the back of the closed door and then flinching at the dull thud as they hit the ground. However, her eyes now held knowledge and experience that no eleven year old could ever have. They held pain, but also success. Love. _Life_. I couldn't help but cradle her delicate, strong head in my hands and look at her and think that she had succeeded in becoming all that her mother had wished for her to be. Her sweet nature was preserved. Her fire was ever-present. She was surrounded by love, freely giving her heart to anyone worthy of it. I was blessed to be on that list. I would never love anything or anyone more than I loved her. I didn't need words. She didn't words. Renée, as well as Isabella, had proven that spoken words were not always the answer. Bella wiped at a tear as it broke free and skated over my cheek while I simply looked at her.

I pulled her gently to rest against me and I rocked back onto my heels. She wilted against my chest, my arms encircling her. I knew she was crying as well. A few of my own tears had fallen into her hair and mingled with hers against her cheeks and neck.

"So beautiful, Izzy," I murmured as I rocked her back and forth. My heart swelled with pride. I would never be even half as strong as she was capable of being. Renée was right. Bella was greatly admired.

What had begun as a bright spring morning, with birds chirping wildly and the sun streaming in through the windows of Bella's front room, was ending with much less vibrancy. It was as if, once my fingers touched the parchment, the world around us muted. Everything was grey as the words exploded off the page and through my mind, landing inside my heart, pulsing and sharp, taking anchor.

I had read and paced and read some more until I was finished and met Bella at the foot of the stairs. I held her there as she sobbed, relieving herself of a great portion of the weight she had been carrying at not sharing something so powerful, so intrinsic, with someone whom she knew it would mean so much to as well. She purged herself of all the pent up anxiety and passion. And I rocked. I closed my eyes and whispered little things to her that I wasn't even sure she was hearing or if they were helping. Still, I prayed she felt in her heart everything I was trying to convey and didn't need to be told. How much I loved her. How much her mother would always love her. How special she was to so many people and how beautiful this thing she had worked so hard at creating truly was.

The world was still muted. It was literally grey. We hadn't turned on any lights in the house and by the time we broke away from one another the sun had sunk and the streetlights outside had flickered alive. They cast sharply angled shadows across her old hardwood floors and against the white walls. Our faces were shrouded and our tears were masked. Her snivels were distinct in the quiet room and my hands shook as they wiped at her cheeks. It had been a very long day somehow, even though neither of us had been conscious of the passing time.

"Are you hungry?" I asked in a whisper, not feeling brave enough to use my full voice. Somehow food seemed superfluous, but it was all I could think of to get us off the floor and moving again.

"Not really," she whispered back. "But I should eat, I suppose," she added after seeing my scowl. Neither of us had eaten since breakfast.

I stood, knees clicking and popping after being bent on the hard floor for god only knew how many hours, and offered her my hand. She followed me into the kitchen but sank to the floor again with her back pressed against the cabinets. I didn't turn on a light. I used the open refrigerator glow as I roughly slapped some peanut butter and jelly on bread and then threw the sandwiches on a plate. I grabbed a box of cereal off the counter and sat down beside Bella, closing the fridge door.

"Thanks," she chuckled in an almost-whisper at my crude idea of dinner. The sound of her laughter, no matter how pathetic it was, did much to quiet my worry.

"Anytime," I joked and cheersed my sandwich with hers before devouring it quickly, realising after the first bite just how ravenous I was. Our plates balanced on our knees and we sat staring forward at the dark nothing with our sides pressed heavily into one another while we ate, chewing in silence until we had finished.

Upstairs we were both undressed and crawling into bed before I noticed that my cell phone, which was still plugged into the wall and resting on the edge of Bella's nightstand where I left it the night before, was blinking rapidly. I had three missed calls and a text message, all from my brother.

Bella was pulling the covers over her bare knees and wiggling down into the blankets. She looked over at me as my face twisted up and I muttered a string of mild obscenities under my breath.

"What is it?" she asked, her big brown eyes immediately worried despite her own emotional fatigue–because that was how naturally compassionate she was.

"A bunch of messages from Em."

"Oh no. You don't think Rose is in labour or anything, do you?" she questioned, quickly counting off months on her fingers and coming up short each time. Seven months.

"Fuck, I hope not," I muttered and quickly clicked open the text message to see if it gave any further information before I called him back.

_Asshole_, was all the message said. I laughed and breathed easier, figuring if it was something urgent he would have at least said so, not to mention that I would have had somewhere near two thousand other missed calls from my mother and sister. I phoned him back anyway.

"Oh good you're alive, hang on let me tell mom to call off the search party," he answered without preamble.

"Fuck off. What do you want?" And then Bella gave me the eyes that told me to behave myself. I rolled mine and she squirmed down deeper into the blankets next to me as I sat, leaning against the wall. Her arm stretched out and lay across my lap and she closed her eyes.

Emmett's laughter on the other end echoed loudly through the receiver and into the quiet bedroom while my fingers combed through Bella's hair. "Come visit next month," he replied simply.

"Aw, bro, I miss you too," I cooed mockingly. Bella's eyes flickered open for a brief second and she smiled up at me.

"Shut up. But seriously, come stay with Rosie for a weekend. I have to go out of town for work–there's no way around it, I've spent all fucking week trying–and she's been told repeatedly by the doctors' to take it easy but won't listen. I don't trust her. Mom and Al have that early Mother's Day spa trip shit in California and Rose will kill herself before she spends an entire weekend under the same roof as her own mother. Her friends are all irresponsible floozies you might recall from the wedding." I ignored his obnoxious tone clearly referencing how they had all consumed way too much alcohol and thrown themselves at me shamelessly much to everyone's amusement but my own. "That leaves you. Come wife-sit for me, pretty please?"

"I'm not sure that's legal," I joked.

"Do you think you can?" He was serious, I could tell. He didn't ask for much from anyone, basically ever. "Her blood-pressure is ridiculous, and some other shit that I don't really get, but dad keeps saying she absolutely needs to rest but she never fucking does. I can't leave town for three days without someone watching her and helping out with Olivia and you were just saying you're overdue for a trip home, so…"

He gave me the dates and I promised I would make something work. Family first. Always, family first.

It was easier than I thought to reschedule some meetings with my advisors and work around everything else. As an added bonus, Bella got the time off as well, but promised to spend most of it with Charlie rather than camped out at my brother's house with me–despite my whining, begging protests. Begrudgingly, I kissed her good-bye one afternoon late in April on the front steps of her house, and then, after a quick stop to say hello to my father at the hospital, I was on the road to Seattle.

Emmett had already left that morning and I was going to be spending the next two nights fighting his stubborn wife for him. I smirked to myself as I merged onto the freeway at the idea. I genuinely loved Rosalie, despite our bristly relationship, because that was just the way we were. The weekend was going to be interesting that much was for sure.

I hadn't even rang the doorbell before she opened the front door and rolled her eyes in greeting. She stepped aside to let me in, the cordless phone pinched between her shoulder and ear.

"Yeah, it's, Edward, I should go… I know right, so lame, but what can I do? You know Emmett, he's a fucking Neanderthal. He'd probably keep me tied to the bedpost all day long if he could… Oh my god, stop it," she squeaked the last part and tried to hide her face from me. I was grateful I could only hear her segmented, partial side of the conversation that had clearly taken a turn for the worse.

Rosalie blushed and quickly ended the call. I decided not to start the weekend off pissing her off further by defending my brother, so I let it go and smiled widely at her. This irritated her just as much, though given her extremely pregnant situation I assumed almost everything short of breathing was going to irritate her over the weekend. She stomped off toward the kitchen. I followed awkwardly, not sure what I should do really.

"Where's Olivia?" I asked, dropping my bag near the bar and pulling out a stool. She glared at the duffle bag, its presence marring her pristine kitchen.

"Asleep." She gave me a look like I was mentally challenged. I looked over her shoulder at the clock on the stove.

"It's not even ten to eight."

"Bedtime is seven-thirty, Edward." She finished snapping the lid on a Tupperware container she was filling with leftovers from the stovetop and then popped it into the fridge. "Oh, are you hungry," she asked, spinning back around with the door still open.

"No, thanks." I smiled at her. She could be as bossy and obnoxious as she wanted to be, I knew there was a softer side in there somewhere.

She shrugged and closed the door. "I'm going upstairs to take a shower. You know where everything is." And with that she was gone.

I put my bag in the guestroom upstairs, changed into some flannel pants and a tee shirt, and wandered back downstairs to watch some TV. I had never been so alone in their home before. Usually, when I was there it was for some sort of gathering and the place was bustling with people, or at the very least I was with my brother and just hanging out near him. Either way, I had never been left to explore.

It was beautifully decorated, between my mother's natural skills, my sister, and of course the lady of the house, everything was artfully coordinated without being obvious. The living room was a beautiful mix of deep browns and reds offset by the thickly striped creamy wallpaper and vanilla-toned overstuffed couches. Professionally staged family photographs printed on black and white canvas covered one of the walls. Rosalie looking as perfect as ever, my brother's doofus dimples, and Olivia stealing all of the attention by immediately drawing your eye to how innocently captivating she was. The house was warm, comfortable, and happy.

I found myself standing over a sofa table with photo albums scattered across it. I flipped through the one from when Olivia was first born, marvelling at how she looked exactly the same at one hour old as she did at almost three years. Her expressions were priceless and unchanged. Her dimples were just as prominent. I smiled fondly down at the images and closed the book.

The one underneath it was a wedding album. I had seen many pictures from that day at my parent's house, but they were mostly all candids along with a few special ones my mother had requested copies of. This was the full album from the hired photographer.

I grabbed the book and sat crossed legged on one of the couches, my back facing the stairwell. Bella was everywhere in the photos and I was spellbound. I remembered the weekend of my brother's wedding vividly. I remembered the way the teal dress complimented her porcelain skin and that she blushed when she had to walk down the aisle alone with her bridesmaid bouquet of flowers. I remembered the smell of the sand and sea as it blew her hair around her cheeks and shoulders during the bridal party pictures, and the way I had snuck in a few kisses when I thought no one was looking. And then of course, there was later that night.

My thoughts died off as I turned the page, seeing the pictures where we chased each other barefoot across the damp sand at the water's edge, the wind whipping around us, the girls squealing and the boy smiling impishly. There were pictures of Emmett carrying Rosalie and her big white dress, stained with wet sand along the hem, both of them laughing vibrantly.

Each page of the large, twelve inch by twelve inch album was a collage of amazing photos, but what stopped me short was a series of three on the far right page about halfway through the album. I wasn't sure whether or not to smile at them, but I think I did anyway as my fingers gently touched the plastic pockets.

The beach had deep caves laced throughout the ocean front. The entire bridal party climbed through some of them at the photographer's request. Our shouts and half-drunken laughter bounced almost menacingly off the semi-enclosed, damp walls while the girls clung to whomever their partners were…or weren't, as was my case, given that I was the best man and the maid of honour was some random cousin of Rosalie's I hadn't bothered to learn the name of at the time. It had been Bella who was always near me throughout the night.

When the party was eventually funnelled back out into the daylight after all the appropriate, playful pictures had been taken, I turned back briefly, cornering Bella. I remembered that moment with just as much precision as I recalled the rest of the weekend. Unbeknownst to us, the photographer must have quietly turned back as well. There were three pictures in the album to prove it. Bella with her knee-length teal dress blowing around her knees, her hair off to one side, and her overly expensive white heels looped through my fingers. Her back was inches from the cave wall and her eyes were huge and soft but also excited as she looked up at me. My other palm was flat against the damp rocks behind her as I leaned in, my tuxedoed body in a straight line inches from hers.

In the first picture she just looked up at me while I smirked. Something I couldn't exactly recall was what I had said to her in that moment, but whatever it was it made her blush. In the second picture she looked away from me to the side and down at the sandy floor of the cave. The harsh, disrupted light from the mouth of the cave made her lashes cast elongated shadows against the rise of her cheekbone and her smile was faintly twisted to one side while I leaned in still closer. In the third and final picture my lips were on the far side of her neck, not directly visible from the camera's perspective, but it was quite evident I was softly kissing just below her ear. I could practically feel her skin on my lips as I looked at the picture. Bella's hand had come up to touch me, her knuckles brushed against the white cotton of my tuxedo shirt while her fingertips dipped into my waistband, my jacket hanging open. Knowing Bella she was both pushing me away and pulling me closer. Both of our eyes were closed contentedly and my body was closer to hers than it had been in the previous two pictures, nearly closing the gap between us, even though they were probably snapped within seconds of one another.

"Wedding pictures?"

I was so lost in recalling the stolen moment–that wasn't actually as stolen as we originally thought–that I hadn't heard Rosalie come down the stairs. She rounded the corner of the couch and plopped down next to me, smiling to herself and pulling the album from my lap. I guessed she hadn't opened that particular photo album in years.

"Yeah, uhh…" I had to clear my throat. "I've never really seen these."

"Really?" She smiled wickedly at me as she glanced down at the pictures I was looking at and then turned the page. She cooed over some mushy pictures of her and my brother. "Well, everyone else has," she added, shooting me a sideways look before she went back to the rest of the album.

Jesus, those pictures were over four years old.

I shook my head at myself and continued the trip down memory lane with Rosalie. Halfway through the photo album she padded off to the kitchen and returned with two glasses and a bottle of red wine.

"Oh shut up," she snarled at me before I even said anything. She poured me a big glass and herself enough to coat the bottom basin of the crystal.

We continued laughing over wedding pictures and funny stories from the night. By the end of the album, when all the pictures got a little sloppy and everyone looked blotchy and sweaty as they partied it up on the dance floor, it was more than a little obvious Bella and I were absent.

"And where, pray tell, were you at this point, little Eddie?" My cheeks flushed as I imagined what I was more than likely doing at that moment. I blamed it on the wine and kept turning the pages while she chuckled and shook her head at me.

She kept shuffling herself against the pillows on the couch, propping her back and feet up and trying to get comfortable with her belly–which, while I would never say anything aloud for fear of mortal injury, was actually alarmingly large–all to no avail. I wasn't sure if I should offer to do anything or what exactly I could do anyway. Eventually, she sighed, gave up, shoved the photo album off her lap, and threw a pillow across the room in frustration. I tried not to chuckle at her, because in truth, I felt bad and as a man, had absolutely no right to find her discomfort in any way humorous. She glared at me regardless.

"Is there anything I can do?" I finally asked feebly, knowing there probably wasn't. "Maybe you should just go up to bed. I can clean up."

She made a very unladylike grunting noise. "Bed sucks. Night time sucks. Stop looking at me like that."

I tried to rearrange my features, though I truthfully didn't think I had been looking at her in any particular way in the first place. I gave up and cracked a smile at her as she waddled across the room and sat at the edge of an end table with her legs spread out and her back hunched over, balancing her hands on her knees. She finally smiled back at me, but it was humourless.

"Ha-ha, laugh at the fat, miserable pregnant woman," she grumbled without looking up.

"Are you kidding me, Rosalie?" I couldn't help but scoff at her. "I'm truly sorry that you're so uncomfortable and I know there isn't anything I can really do to help. But 'fat'? Seriously? You look beautiful and you know it." I knew her well enough to understand she hated feeling unattractive and out of control in her own skin. Typically, Rosalie was the embodiment of genuine, outward confidence. Clearly she was deluded by her current condition.

She rolled her eyes while still staring at the floor and her puffy feet as they swung in the air, but said nothing further. We sat in silence for a few minutes while she breathed regularly, probably trying to bring herself a sliver of relief somehow.

"Well, I happen to think everything about you right now is perfect," I murmured, envisioning myself beside a glowing, albeit perhaps equally miserable, Isabella someday. I couldn't see anything but immense gratification in an image such as that.

I hadn't intended for her to hear me, but she lifted her head and looked up at me, so I knew that she had. "I mean it, Rosalie. It's…" How do you even put something so profound into words? Men are lucky. Men who _realise_ how lucky they are, well… "My brother is blessed. He likes to make jokes about me, and New York, and whatever, but he's just being an ass, which I realise I do _not _need to tell you that. But he's the lucky one. He has everything…already. And you truly are incredible, never more than when you're pregnant, in my opinion. It's an overwhelming thing to us guys, this 'creating life' shit. And I happen to know for a fact that my brother feels exactly the same way I do. You know you're beautiful, and being pregnant doesn't change that, it accentuates it. So shut up."

She rubbed her belly and continued to look to the floor, but her features were all screwed to the side and her brows drawn in. It was the most vulnerable I had ever seen my sister-in-law look in the eight years I had known her. It was startling but also humbling. I supposed it was an insight to the real woman my brother had married, the depths she rarely allowed others to see.

"Thank you," she squeaked out eventually, reminding me where I was while my thoughts splintered off in a tired haze. It was not difficult to guess what I had been thinking of. I blinked and looked back up at her and nodded in acknowledgement. "You can actually be very sweet when you want to be, Edward, you know that?"

I laughed, the statement, coming from her was just too damn ironic.

"Gee thanks, babe, but I'm already taken," I joked and nodded at the now-closed photo album on the coffee table between us and what had apparently been obvious for far longer than I ever imagined.

She giggled. "Oh, believe me, I know. Have you ever _not _been taken?"

"Yep. There were about three months of pure freedom there in the beginning where I really whooped it up before she came along." More giggling, which I figured, assuming it didn't put her in labour, was a good thing and I was succeeding at my babysitting task. "I know it seems like we never had a choice, and I certainly never felt like I consciously made one, but if I had to, I'd have chosen her every time." It was a cheesy declaration, that was for sure, but that didn't negate its validity. And pregnant women love cheesy, romantic shit.

I paused to assess the situation. Rosalie's eyes were tired but soft. She appeared to be genuinely enjoying the distraction of my story while she sat in what appeared to me anyway, as the world's most uncomfortable position on the hard corner of the table. So I continued.

"I can't even explain it…how much…I mean." I shook my head, as always, fumbling over the words that could even come close to representing everything I felt for someone so integral to my survival. Where Bella excelled, I truly sucked at the English language. I blew out a firm breath and my eyes landed on Rosalie's. To my amazement she didn't look irritated or impatient as she waited for me to elaborate. "I just need her. Like, as presumptuous as it is, I feel like I love and am connected to her in ways no one else can appreciate. I mean, I know that for whatever reason you love my brother, and he would obviously walk through fire for you, but…me and Bella, I don't know what I mean exactly. I just feel like were different somehow. Its closer to the way I would imagine you love Olivia. Bella could do so little wrong in my eyes. There's nothing about her that genuinely upsets me or that I just tolerate. Everything about her is strong, and beautiful and warm." I silently recalled the strength displayed in the pages of her novel, which no one but me knew about yet, and again I was flooded with admiration. "She inspires me. It's her eyes when she looks at me, her laughter somewhere in the air around me. I need it. I feel so fucking disoriented without it that it boggles my mind sometimes. It's a more unconditional love than most couples seem to have for one another. I just look at her and it's the most natural thing in the world. How can it not be after everything we've been through together? How can I not feel like we have more than everyone else when we literally do? I don't have a single goddamn memory that doesn't somehow include her. It's just always been _us_. Every fibre of what I am belongs with her and is woven through her. It's uncomplicated and irrevocable. So," I nodded to her belly, "in a way, it just seems like what I'd imagine the love of a child to be like. Unfaltering and truly absolute."

Once everything on the inside of me began tumbling out I tended to lose myself inside my own ramblings, nonsensical and littered with inarticulate obscenities as they were, and I had somehow missed the fact that tears were quietly streaming down Rosalie's cheeks. I mentally kicked myself because laughter was one thing, but now I had gone and made my brother's wife cry when I was supposed to be seeing to it that she took it easy, whatever that meant. I was about to say something to try and end the seriousness of the conversation or switch topics altogether, when she wiped her face on the back of her hand and muttered something about her "stupid hormones".

"You're right though," she continued. "That is _exactly _like the love for a child. You'll know what I mean someday. Probably sooner rather than later would be my guess." She smiled at me and I threw a pillow at her. A nice Rosalie was one thing, but a vulnerable and sappy Rosalie was completely freaking me the fuck out.

The rest of the weekend went along smoothly. Rosalie seemed to find a new appreciation for me after my emotional, late-night rant and she wasn't as difficult to deal with as I had anticipated. Besides, I spent the majority of my time that weekend chasing a squealing toddler with purple fairy wings through the thick grass of a park near their house. Or sneaking cinnamon doughnuts from Pike's Market when taking her out for never-ending walks along the scenic boardwalk, and sliding down plastic, static-filled slides at the local playgrounds. Every time I left the house Rosalie was laying down either in bed or on the couch. Whether she stayed that way the entire day I had no way of knowing, but at least she was able to relax a little. Olivia and I brought home Chinese take-out for dinner one night and I cooked the next. So really, I figured that by the end of the weekend I had proven to be quite the excellent wife-sitter.

By Sunday night my brother was back in town. We all drove back into Forks to keep my father company for a few days while my mother and sister were still away. Though, I obviously had other reasons for eagerly returning to Forks. I couldn't wait to meet back up with Bella after her weekend spent hanging out with Charlie and away from me. I knew it was good for the two of them to get some uninterrupted time together, but that didn't mean I didn't selfishly miss her and need to reclaim her for myself immediately. Judging from the phone call that came through on my cell two in the morning the day before I came back into town, it was safe to assume she was missing me just as badly.

With that said, I literally wasn't even allowed the opportunity to spend the day with her. Before I knew it, I was being swept up in the middle of a guy's night out. Emmett and Jasper hadn't been out together in months, and apparently with me in town, they agreed it was the perfect time to correct that. Plans were made before I was even informed. I hadn't been at my parents' house for more than twenty minutes before Jasper, with his fingers wrapped firmly around my wrist, literally pulled me away from Bella as she leaned against the front door giggling at me. I tried to squirm away to get one last, quick kiss good-bye while being carted down the stairs by the back collar of my polo shirt. Bella winked at me and yelled for us to have fun and behave ourselves. My brother shouted back that he was unwilling to make any such promises, and then we were off.

The night turned into a really sloppy smear of different events before it ended in the wee morning hours. I woke up more than a little agitated after less than three hours of sleep to the sound of loud voices carelessly booming away from just down the small stairwell outside Bella's bedroom door. I grumbled and swore under my breath, already knowing before I opened my eyes that given the circumstances, my mood was caustic. The plus side was the familiar, warm body curled in front of me. I clung to it.

However, the aggravating way the night ended was still boiling through me even as I lay there and tried to tune the disturbance out. I squeezed my eyelids shut and snuggled in deeper to Bella, trying to tether myself to her and use her to pull me back to the warm, sleepy place I had been a moment ago.

I had been thankful the night before that over the course of the evening the three of us had somehow managed to avoid ending up inebriated in some skeezy, small town strip-joint, which to be honest, was a really close call. Luckily, I was the designated-driver and so I was sober and able to coerce everyone elsewhere without incident. We met up with some of my brother and Jasper's buddies, bar hopped all through Port Angeles, and then slowly I led us back toward Forks. I was drained and lonely and desperate by the end of the night. I had a great time bullshitting with my brothers, truly, they were a riot and I was lucky to have them, but by three AM I was funneling their drunken asses toward the open doorway of the last place we were in, promising the bouncer on the way out that I was indeed entirely sober.

I dropped Jasper off at his apartment and then Emmett at my parents. I saw to it that he made it safely through the front door and was in the general direction of the stairwell before returning outside. Instead of parking the car and going upstairs to my own bed, I cut out of the driveway with my eyes feeling like I had drops of acid in them. I veered left onto the pitch-black, old logging highway that would take me back into town and toward Bella's house. My old Volvo pulled into the driveway at the same time Charlie's cruiser showed up, home a couple of hours early for whatever reason. I couldn't have cared less; I was just there to sleep.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he grumbled at me, slamming his door shut with his boot and rounding the car from the spot he kept it on the curb to meet me in the driveway. The gravel crunched underneath his boots in a menacing way. Whatever reason he had for leaving the station early, it obviously had something to do with him being in a shitty mood.

"Good morning to you too, sir," I murmured, not giving a shit about his mood. I was too fucking tired.

"Don't give me your attitude, kid. What possible reason could you have for pulling up to my house at four in the morning?"

_What am I, fifteen, _I wanted to snarl at him. But I figured that was not in my best interest. We were in the house by that time. I kicked off my shoes and hung my jacket up next to his as he glared at me.

"I was out with my brother and I just dropped him off. I'm tired and going upstairs to sleep," I explained as my feet slowly shuffled up the steps. He was right behind me. I no sooner had my hand on Bella's bedroom doorknob than Charlie's was digging into my shoulder, restraining me expertly. For a solid thirty seconds he just looked at me. I was sure he was judging whether or not I had been drinking. This irritated me because he fucking knew me better than that.

"You weren't expecting me to be home just now." He said it without question. He was two hours early, of course I wasn't. But his insinuations were grating on me. If he only fucking knew…

The acid behind my eyelids burned stronger the longer I hovered so close to a warm, cozy bed but wasn't allowed to climb into it.

"What the hell is your deal tonight, Charlie?" I shrugged out of his grip and pushed the door open and then turned back to him, lowering my voice to a violent whisper. "In case it has escaped your notice, Bella and I are practically living together back east. You realise this includes sleeping in the same bed, right? Lighten up. I legitimately want nothing more than to be asleep right now and not wake up for a solid twelve hours. I'm fucking bagged. Goodnight."

I truly should have been ashamed of myself for speaking to the man that way, especially in his own home. My parents raised me better than that and they definitely would have been horrified by my disrespect. But my brothers' and their stupid drunken antics and the long night had burned through my reserve of patience, small as it was to begin with, my eyes stung, my body ached, and the bed was so goddamn close. Charlie was in a shit mood and he was taking it out on me. So, whatever small amount of guilt I should have harboured was non-existent.

I yanked my shirt over my head and undid my jeans, fully aware Charlie had yet to walk away from his place outside Bella's door. I kicked them off and left them on the floor beside her little bed and crawled in. I slid my arm around her warmth and my soul breathed a sigh of relief immediately. I smiled into the back of her head, placing a soft kiss. She hummed and laced her fingers through mine where they lay against her stomach.

"What time is it?" she murmured in a very sleepy voice.

"Shh." I nuzzled against the back of her neck. "It's really late, or...early I guess. Go back to sleep."

"Did you have fun?"

"Yes," I whispered back truthfully. As irritating as being sober amongst drunken idiots was, I loved those guys and always enjoyed my time with them.

Bella's body relaxed and she was back asleep before my next breath. The hallway outside the creaked underfoot as Charlie grunted and walked away, apparently satisfied I wasn't there to accost his daughter while he was in the next room.

The memory of the shitty exchange and the lack of sleep were the reasons I awoke so immeasurably bristled several short hours later. Charlie and his fishing buddy were gathering their shit way too fucking loudly as if they didn't care there were two sleeping people upstairs, which they probably didn't. The house was small and Bella's door was wide open. Charlie knew what he was doing. A streak of rebellious defiance pulsed through me.

When I failed at falling back asleep, I pressed my lips to the back of Bella's neck and slid my fingers under the waistband of her panties, which were the only thing other than the thin tank top that she had on. My fingers expertly formed to her body in the right places, separating, sliding, and rubbing. My long middle finger was encased by her warmth while my thumb pushed delicate circles into her. I elbowed her thigh with the same arm to force it open a little wider. She complied, though she was still more or less asleep.

She moaned quietly and unconsciously, enjoying what I was doing to her even though her eyes had yet to open. I felt it vibrate through me and resonate deep inside my gut as it twisted and my cock twitched against her backside. Idly, I wondered just how far I was going to take this, but my dick seemed to already know the answer. I was fine with following its lead.

My eyes were on the open doorway and a glower on my face. Clearly, I needed more sleep. I knew I was acting incredibly out of character, I just couldn't find the capacity to give a shit.

Bella rolled onto her back and I propped myself up on my other arm. In less than a second I had my teeth tugging down the top of her tank to expose her bare, beautiful, rosy nipple. It was in my mouth the very next second, hardening under my tongue as I flattened it against her. I smiled around and watched Bella's face from under my lashes while my tongue circled slowly and then flicked. Her eyes opened gradually and her hips shifted beneath me. There was more moaning.

"Wha...?" she mumbled inarticulately, too shrouded in sleep to realise I shouldn't be doing what I was doing. A gentle smile crept across her flushed cheeks.

I pinched her nipple tightly between my front teeth just to see if she would squeal a little. Astutely aware of her open doorway, I think part of me kind of wanted to have to silence her somehow. She didn't make a peep. Her eyes rolled back into her head as my middle finger slowly pulled out and two slipped back in. I smiled. I fucking loved being inside Isabella, in any way she'd have me. Her blind trust made it that much more enjoyable. My thumb circled as my fingers twisted.

"Okay," she sighed, giving in fully. I slid under the covers and down her body until the blankets were hovering around her waist and my shoulders. I removed my fingers momentarily to pull aside her panties and ran my tongue through her, tasting everything I had already begun. Her eyes awakened, finally registering the alarm I had been waiting for her to clue in to. Her father's voice was still clearly audible from the storage space beneath the stairwell as he grumbled to his buddy about not being able to find some stupid fucking fishing something or another.

Looking up at her with my face between her legs, I took another very slow, _very deliberate, _lick through her folds, swirling my tongue around her at the top, making her abdomen ripple and her breath catch. I made another pass through her, a slight, lopsided smirk on my face where it touched her skin.

"Edward!" she hissed sharply. "Get up." She tugged at my hair but not sexually, she was trying to pull me away from her. Defiance flared. I released the nipple I had been casually rolling between my other thumb and forefinger, and flattened my palm against her face, shoving her back against the pillow. She grunted into my palm but, to my delight, she lied down and didn't try and fight me again.

I closed my mouth on her and sucked, my tongue flattening softly against her, sliding at the exact pace that I knew would be her quick undoing until the insides of her thighs quaked and her fingers tightened in my hair. She was no longer pulling me away. I pushed the pad of my thumb underneath my upper lip to help, and curled my fingers deep inside her, slowly pulling them out and then pushing them back in. My hips shifted, grinding myself against her knee, which, the little smile that lifted the corners of her mouth upon feeling me said she liked. She lifted her leg to meet me easier and pushed into me, causing me to groan with my mouth still against her slippery flesh.

I gave up completely and tore at the waistband of my boxers to lower them just enough to free myself and pushed inside the hot wet mess I had made at the very centre of Bella. I hovered over her and framed her head with my forearms, biting at her collarbone and neck, breathing rapidly into her ear. She didn't fight me. She wanted it as badly as I did, circumstances be damned. It wasn't like we hadn't been sneaking sex under our parents' roofs for years already.

My head bowed and my forehead rest against her collarbone, feeling it hard against my skull as I tried not to make a sound. She tightened around me. A few slow in-and-out's later and we were both shuddering as silently as we could against one another. One hand stretched out to brace against the old wooden headboard while my other clutched at the padding of the little purple pillow underneath her head. Bella's nails dug deep into my bare shoulders and that was a groan I had to swallow as well. It fucking stung but I deserved it. I was a little shit and disrespectful as all fuck. I'd take the pain mixed with the satisfaction of spilling into her body and then slackening mercifully against her.

Her thighs loosened beneath me and I panted against her skin, feeling my own hot breath coming back against my cheeks and eyes. I fixed myself and flopped over to my place beside her, no doubt less than ten minutes after I first left it. Time could fuck itself, we were both satisfied.

I tugged Bella's underwear back into position, not that she was anything short of a sticky mess, but I felt better about having violated her so fervently with her panties back in place. I smiled to myself and threw my arm over my eyes and went back to sleep with her happily curled around me.

It was early afternoon before I finally awoke again. I found Bella, much cleaner than I remembered her last, downstairs sitting cross-legged on the couch with an old CD playing while she folded laundry. I was a mess. I kissed the top of her head as I stumbled by her, my joints creaking and my head protesting such an odd mix of the previous twelve hours. Loud sweaty bars, cigarette smoke in the air, drunken foolish brothers, an obnoxious car ride home, drive-thru French fries, a scuffle with Charlie, not enough sleep, intense irritation, alarming flare of defiance, mind-blowing orgasm, blissful sleep... It was quite the cocktail.

I had a pounding headache and needed caffeine badly. I poured the stale pot into a mug. The stupid, old machine was still burning coffee, but it was going to have to suffice. I was pressing the buttons on the microwave when Bella cleared her throat from where she was standing in the archway from the living room, an eyebrow cocked at me and a firm hand on her hip. I smiled as sweetly as I could muster, sure that the fact that I only had on a pair of wrinkled, dirty boxers, no shirt, and a riot of hair on top of my head was not going to help my attempt at looking innocent.

"On a scale of one-to-ten...?" I asked in a hoarse voice. There was no need to complete the question. It was the same one we had been jokingly asking one another since we were children whenever we knew we were in shit with each other for whatever reason. ..._how much trouble am I in?_

"Two," she replied, her smiled belying her attempt to look stern.

"Two?" I repeated with a smug smile, pulling my mug from the microwave.

"Yeah, well... It was a pretty decent way to wake up." Her smile stretched from ear to ear and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Decent my ass," I muttered jokingly into my coffee as I took a sip. She giggled, rolled her eyes, and then left the room, but not before reaching out and yanking a good little fistful of my hair and pulling me toward her for a quick kiss.

Forgiving as she appeared to be, I still had no plans to fully divulge how deeply rooted in rebellious insubordination my motives were that morning. I let her walk away and smiled silently into my coffee.

Later that night, after pizza and movies at my parents' house, everyone split off into their own activities. Emmett and Rosalie were staying one more night before heading back to Seattle in the morning. They had gone to bed–or something like that which I refused to think about given Emmett's bedroom was directly above my head at the moment. Olivia had been asleep upstairs for hours, and my father and Charlie were in the kitchen, their familiar, deep laughter occasionally rumbling through the walls.

Only Bella and I remained in the den on the main floor, just beside the front room, with the TV still on. I lay stretched out on my back with my feet overhanging the arm of the sofa. Bella was squished between me and the back of the couch, half of her body thrown contentedly across mine, her head on my chest. My arm draped across her back and y open palm rest on her hip, though my fingers occasionally found the need to rub back and forth across her ass cheek underneath my palm. Because sometimes I had zero self-control like that. She didn't seem to mind.

The movie had ended over an hour ago, but I was still beat from the long night before and Bella seemed perfectly content to spend the evening resting with me. I could tell by the gentle rise and fall of her body pressed against my chest that she was no longer watching the reruns of whatever show had come on the movie channel in front of us.

I closed my eyes and breathed her in. Everything felt so warm and right. Cozy in my parents' home, openly laying there with my best friend, my girlfriend, Isabella, snuggled intimately against me. My own breathing was falling naturally in line with hers, though I had yet to fall asleep entirely. Still, my eyelids were heavy and the fuzzy black warmth had begun creeping in on me. I heard the swing door to the kitchen squeak and heavy footsteps come up behind the back of the couch. It sounded like my father was walking Charlie to the front door, their conversation halting momentarily as they rounded the corner and stuck their heads into the den to see if anyone was still in there.

Charlie snorted obnoxiously as soon as the footsteps stopped behind me. If I had been one molecule less exhausted I may have had something to say to him. As it was, I was practically asleep.

"You know," he began, his rough voice was tired but still it was evident that he was just as comfortable in my house as I was. "I really hate your kid." I tried not to throw Bella off of me and sit up just so I could glower at him.

My father laughed good-naturedly and possibly slapped his shoulder from the sound of it. I waited for him to defend me. "No you don't, Charlie," he eventually replied in his signature warm, smooth voice. I fought back a smile.

"Oh, yes, I do," Charlie grunted and I heard boots shuffle. There was a long moment of quiet and I wondered what was being exchanged that I could see.

"You think I don't appreciate what you mean?" It sounded like my father leaned against something as he spoke. I could hear the rattle of the vase that balanced on the sofa table just behind the couch. "I have a daughter too, you know? You think I don't want to string Jasper up by his balls sometimes when I see the way he looks at her? Oddly enough, I don't have that same reaction to Rosalie." They both chuckled at that. "Daughters are just different, I get it. But that doesn't mean you hate him."

"No," Charlie relented. "S'ppose I don't."

I almost felt remorseful. Almost.

* * *

It's Rob's birthday.

Be defiant.

Love me...or I'll shackle you to a bed post.

*winks*

Air

~xox~


	41. I Promise

So… *digs toe and sing-songs* I had a baby...

TEE HEE

He is adorable and perfect and you should all be jealous. Except for the no sleeping part...

Try not to blame him for the lack of updates, he is too cute.

Did I mention **Sam Bradley** himself called me to tell me how adorable the pictures he had seen of him were and to congratulate me.

What...did you not know I AM TIGHT WITH THE BRIT-PACK LIKE THAT WUT?

Dead serious...moving on...

*sly smile*

You have waited long enough...here you go...

* * *

"Wait, what? Slow down…" I ducked away from the people teeming around me in an attempt to dull their buzz. I hugged closer to the far wall of a red tent with pyramids of apples beneath it. Bella and I were spending our Saturday morning casually strolling around an outdoor urban fare market picking up food for dinner when Alice's call came through. The older lady working the stand abandoned her attention to a display of McIntoshes to ask me if I needed any assistance. I politely shook my head, and after a quick glance at the screen of my cell to make sure my volume was at full capacity, I pressed it harder against my ear and tried to piece together my little sister's frenzied ramblings.

She had begun the conversation like a bullet in her usual, hurried and high-pitched manner, barely pausing for air in over three minutes of hurtling information at me–only half of which I was able to catch, all of which was concerning. Bella ducked into the tent with me and widened her eyes and raised her brows in the universal signal for "what the hell is going on?" I couldn't give her many specifics since I was struggling to keep up myself, but I had gathered enough essentials to fill her in quickly.

I pushed the receiver away from my face for a moment, knowing Alice wouldn't be easing up any time soon and would probably not even notice. Still half listening to my sister, I spoke to Bella in quiet, quick whispers that summed the whole thing up as concisely as I could given the source of my information.

"Rose was at the doctor for a check-up and the doctor accidently broke her water. They barely had time to call Emmett but I _think_ it he made it there from work in time. She's doing okay now. Baby is a little smaller than Olivia was but seems fine. It's a girl."

I broke off my whispering to Bella who was now silently jumping and clapping in front of me with a huge smile, the way all women seemed to react to baby news of any variety. I cut Alice off mid-rant about kicking the obstetrician's ass and how our father should raise hell at the hospital, to ask the one basic piece of information I had somehow missed in the flood of news.

"What did they name her?" I then redirected the answer back to Bella. "Amelia Mae."

Bella made another distinctly female face at the baby's name that meant she thought it was adorable, and as much as I would love to poke fun at the two girls for being so silly over the baby, I couldn't, because the truth was I felt just as giddy.

Two beautiful little girls. My brother was a blessed man.

Bella reached for the phone and I passed it over without saying another word to my sister–as if I would have been able to–and then ambled over to a bench to sit while they exchanged all the pertinent information that everyone always wanted to know about babies. How much she weighed? How was Rosalie doing? Who did she look like? Did Emmett say anything stupid to get himself sucker punched by Rosalie and glared at by nurses like he did the last time?

I sat and listened to the one-sided, calmer, end of the conversation and gathered that everyone was doing great, Olivia had already met her new little sister and fell in love immediately–asking if she could come to ballet with her the following Wednesday–and that my brother had, in fact, learned a lesson the last time and kept his trap shut for the thirty seconds he was in the room before Amelia made her grand appearance. It seemed the baby weighed on the small side for a Cullen, since we all tipped the scaled at birth, but had solid Apgar scores, which was great considering she was a few weeks early. She had a head full of dark, curly hair like my brother's–which was going to be quite a cute little contrast next to Olivia's shockingly bright-blonde pigtails. My parents were somewhere in the hospital along with Alice, either occupying Olivia or smothering the new pink bundle, and Rosalie's parents were on their way. Everyone was buzzing with excitement.

It was killing me to be so goddamn far away. I remembered how humbling an experience it was for me to stand over Olivia when she was only hours old, holding her new little life in my arms and welcoming her to the world together with the rest of our family. Something hot and sharp poked through my chest and weighed down the otherwise pure elation I felt for my brother and his wife over their healthy new addition. I ached to be there. I _should have _been there.

Bella flipped the phone closed and laid her hand on my knee. I stared at it and nodded slowly, though at what I wasn't exactly sure.

"I know," she whispered quietly, not needing to say any more.

While I may not have been able to put into words what I was feeling, Bella knew. Of course she did. My family was her family. She felt the shitty poke at her heart too, pushing her out west.

Before we stood from the bench, she pulled out her own cell after hearing it beep from her pocket, and showed me a picture of the sweetest little pink, messy dark-haired, dimple-cheeked baby I had ever seen. Her eyes were gooey and her head was still covered in crusty shit that I didn't care to think about…she was gorgeous.

The thing about a push as firm and persistent and the one we always felt pulsing in our hearts was that that eventually we couldn't help but follow where it led. Following wasn't much of a concession. With every mile the plane home travelled, it brought us that much closer to getting everything we ever wanted. We knew it. We felt it in the stuffy cabin air around us. Sometimes _home _could be so abstract, like a blanket, a couch, a bottle of wine, an old movie, and Bella. Other times, _home _had a place. Those times, it was always firmly located out West.

No. Going home was never a concession. It was always just another slow step in the right direction. There were a lot of those subtle, little steps imprinted behind us…not that many left in front. Thank God.

And then…I held Amelia. Someone, I don't know whom exactly, took a picture of me holding her for the first time. She was six weeks old. I finished my school year and Bella arranged a few weeks off from work and then we fled to Washington with no regrets. But it took six weeks from the time I first received that rapid-fire phone call from Alice to the moment that picture was snapped. Six weeks of torture. Of emailed pictures, text messages, gushing relatives, and wailing newborn cries in the background of every phone conversation I had with my brother. Six weeks of making my mind up about many things.

Amelia was already so big. Her hair was dark, not quite brown and not quite black. It curled tightly at the ends and stuck out in every direction as it tried to grow. It was beautiful. She had big blue eyes like both of her parents. However, when I looked into these little ones, I knew they came from Emmett. I had seen those eyes my entire life. They were deep and held mischief. The kid was going to be a jolly little troublemaker like my brother. I whispered that much to her, that I was on to her, as I stood in the foyer of my parents' house, having barely walked through the door, dropped my bags, and demanded the baby.

She looked nothing like me, but the awe with which I looked down at her, emblazoned forever in the photo, it has been said a hundred times over that she could have been my own child for how entirely smitten I was. From the bottom of the stairwell my mother looked at me with watery eyes.

I don't know how mothers do that _thing _where they always fucking know what you are thinking, but she was doing it in that moment. She knew my hands ached to hold a baby of my own. That my heart needed to move quicker than my head was allowing. That logic could go fuck itself, I wanted my real life and I wanted it right-fucking-now. I wanted to run laps around those final few "steps" that were still left ahead of us and claim it all.

And then Bella rounded the corner from behind me. She squealed at the sight of Amelia and bowed to gently kiss her on the crown of her head. Bella's palm cupped the baby's little skull and her thumb brushed over the dark curls.

I stared at her hand. Her fingers.

Bella may have been talking, most likely congratulating my brother and Rosalie, or commenting on how precious the baby was, or asking what was for lunch for all I knew…her voice, as sweet and reassuring as it was to my ears, was a distant murmur while my mind raced. It was all I could do as I looked up at her over the top of the baby we held together and not drag her ass upstairs so we could see what a combination of the two of us would look like. She would have let me. Real life would have begun.

But I didn't. In the end, common sense and manners prevailed, and we followed my family into the kitchen instead. I refused to relinquish the baby, and by the end of lunch I also had Olivia balanced on my knee spouting off a mile a minute about being a big sister and how cool it was, and how the baby "bought" her a present and that it was a new Princess Barbie. I just smiled and nodded at her because that was all I could manage. She really spent way too much time with her Auntie.

My sandwich was happily untouched. .

I didn't starve. Olivia fed me BBQ chips out of a plastic bowl from the centre of the table while the other grown-ups chatted. A few of them were soggy…I didn't ask why. She wasn't allowed to eat chips. She licked her fingers after every one she shoved into my mouth, smirking sheepishly across the table at Rosalie feeling like she was getting away with something. I chuckled at her.

Later that evening, after playing mermaids in the bathtub with Olivia, I snuck into my father's library and swiped a phone number out of his old Rolodex, feeling like, for whatever reason, I didn't want anyone knowing what I was doing just yet. I had given the idea a lot of thought. It was time. I was certain that Bella would agree. However, it was going to be a slow process. Luckily, we were accustomed to slow.

I found Bella outside on the back deck, sprawled out on one of my mothers large cushioned patio chaises that she rarely used. She had Amelia balanced on her bent legs, cupping her head and cooing at her as she gently swayed her knees side to side to calm the baby. Amelia must have been the reason she opted for the expensive lounger and not the grass under the open stars like she normally would prefer.

I sat at the foot of the chaise, looking down at the baby and clearing my throat, which had inexplicably grown a little tight.

"So," I began. "I sleuthed Ryan Donahue's phone number from my father's desk when nobody was looking. Maybe we should call him tomorrow morning or something." I was aiming for a casual tone that tapered off nonchalantly at the end, but Bella saw right through me. Her eyebrow raised in a way that I knew was her politely mocking me.

"Ryan, as in, your dad's real estate buddy? _That _Ryan?" Her smile was slow and cautious, but then turned as bright as one of those brilliant stars she was looking up at, splattered against the clear country sky. She was more beautiful by a long shot.

I nodded slowly, smirking.

"Okay," she whispered, nodding along with me and then looking back down at Amelia, who was blissfully asleep in her lap, arms dangling like limp noodles at her sides.

We were always on the same page. She was ready too. There was only one thing that had me worried.

"The only thing is...I don't know. I think... Are you okay with Seattle? I mean, I know it's kind of far from Forks, but…" I was going to justify the distance with my own work. I would be finishing up my doctorate in less than a year, and with the medical psychology field that I was aiming for, I needed to be near a major teaching hospital so I could finish out my required hours of training as well as find proper employment. I was going to promise her that once my certification was complete we could drift back toward homeif she preferred. I was going to tell her that I loved her and was so fucking jazzed about the idea of moving in together, wholly and absolutely, in the State of Washington, that if she really wanted to stay closer to her father, I would happily drive two plus hours to work on the congested I-5 battling Express Lanes and exit line-ups in the underground concrete labyrinth if it meant we were really, actually _doing this_.

I didn't need to say any of that. She silenced me with a stern look. I could practically feel the pad of her index finger pressed against my lips, knowing had her hands not been busy holding Amelia, that was precisely what she would have done.

"_The east coast _is far from Forks, Edward. Seattle is perfect. It's practically home."

"Not 'practically' if Ryan does his job right." I winked at her with a soft smile pulling up the corners of my mouth to match hers. Her cheeks were reddening and it was so endearing the way she still got random bouts of bashfulness over certain things with me.

I patted her hip with the back of my hand to silently ask her to scoot over and make room for me. I wanted to lay with her and the baby under the quiet stars, with the buttery glow of lights from the kitchen filtering out through the glass door, and the drone of our family's voices humming behind us through the open windows. Closing my eyes, the air was warm, Bella's body was moulded against, the baby was softly snoring, and the night was perfect. Everything was beginning to form so close in front of me that I could taste it. Or, reach the fuck out and grab it. Either way…it was almost all mine.

_Ours._

I called Ryan first thing in the morning and arranged a meeting with him. Within a few days time we were making a day trip into the city to tour the multitude of places he had arranged for us. We knew we were operating a little backward, having not met with a bank or secured any mortgage agreements just yet, but Ryan was a family friend and didn't mind doing us the favour. We had an idea of what we would be able to afford and were anxious to see what was out there in the city and which neighborhoods we would prefer when the time was right. We wanted Ryan to know what to keep an eye out for while we tied off all our loose ends over the following year back east, because very soon we _would _be ready.

A few days later, I paced the floors of my parent's kitchen with a beer bottle gathering condensation and dripping onto the artificially chilled marble floors. It dangled forgotten from my fingertips as I strode back and forth.

There was something very specific on my mind. We were leaving the following morning and if I was going to do it, it had to be immediately. Unfortunately, I could envision nothing more distressing. Nothing. No matter how simple or how true the root of the matter was.

In the end, my distress won out over my anxious heart and I chickened out.

_One big step at a time, _I told myself. The advice seemed sound, if not solely based on my admitted chicken-shitness, considering our entire lives and relationship had been based on a series of teeny-barely-even-fucking-there steps. We were overdue for some really big ones just to get us to the finish line on time.

Still…I waited. And planned. And found solace in the idea that, at the very least, the ball had finally been set into motion. Even if the proverbial ball was only in my head. It was still moving. All I had to do was run down the hill after it.

That was precisely what I did eight months later when Bella and I returned, once again, to the rainy little city in Washington that we called home. We were just there for a visit. A random extended weekend in late February because we missed our home and our family. The closer Bella and I grew as a couple and the nearer we came to completing our business on the east coast, the harder _home _pulled at us.

It was early morning–still as dark as the middle of the night. Bella was curled up next to me. She had shopping plans with my sister and my mother later that day that would take her into Seattle, where they would end at my brother's house having dinner with Rosalie and the little girls. However, as of now, her head was tucked neatly into that little divot between my chest and shoulder that held her perfectly. We had made love. Slowly. Softly. Quiet on the outside yet screaming on the inside while connected. Afterward, Bella giggled, all steamy warm flesh and sticky hair, as she lay in my arms and we discussed trivial little things until sleep beckoned.

For her.

Sleep beckoned for her. I, on the other hand, after the warm pool of orgasmic lava flooded through me, making my limbs heavy and my eyes fuzzy…my brain became wired. Bella drifted while I vibrated with nervous energy. The longer I lay there, the sweeter her contact became, the more emotional my thoughts spiraled, and the darker the room grew. Until it was black shadow overlapping black shadow and Bella's breathing was deep and steady. My eyes were two blindingly white golf balls tied to the ceiling unable to blink chasing my thoughts like a dog's tail around in circles. Conversations were planned and replanted as better approaches came to my mind–as if it hadn't been all I thought about for months. The truth was, I had more incentive for a homecoming than Bella knew about. Visiting was nice. What I wanted was even nicer. And it was about damned time.

After hours of the blank stare, I steeled my resolve and kissed Bella on the cheek. I took a few extra moments to just look at her, floating somewhere contentedly in dreamland. Everything about her was soft, visible to me even in the black room. I could see her perfectly with my eyes closed.

Her lips deserved the kiss her cheek had stolen, and so I gently gave her another before rolling out of bed and throwing on some clothes without paying attention to what I was grabbing. I was too nervous. My mind was everywhere else, both needing to just hurry the fuck up and get through this, and wanting nothing more than to abandon the idea and try to find the warm happy place where Bella was and lie with her. My heart was racing.

The garage door sounded monstrously loud in the serene morning hours where reality seemed suspended and everything was shrouded in layers of dark and grey. It screamed and I cringed to myself. The old folding metal opened slowly and I knew it was sending rumbling vibrations through the entire house. I did my best to ignore it and prayed it didn't wake anyone or else I may have had some explaining to do for sneaking out of my own house so early in the morning. I climbed into the old Volvo and fired it up, immediately plugging my iPod into the console in an effort to distract myself while I pulled out of the driveway.

I wasn't even into town before I was yanking the cord out of the adapter violently, silencing the piercing noise of the rock music. I wanted something that could get in my head and bounce around a bit, amping me up so I could swallow the unnecessary anxiety that was creeping up my throat and knotting my chest, trying to suffocate me before I could even begin. Unfortunately, that was _not _it. I wasn't going for a fucking run around the city. I had grossly misjudged. I didn't need hyping up, I needed…peace, confidence, strength. And once the car was pulled idling against the curb and the scenery outside was no longer a blur of forest and small-town suburbia on either side of me, once everything was still, the screaming guitar and morbid lyrics began fucking with my head. I plugged the cord back in and scrolled through the albums, hearing the gentle ticking noise come through the car speakers as the device moved under my control.

I smiled to myself and made a new selection. The song filled my car with the sweet, melodic tinklings of piano keys, calmly swirling around my head. The voice in the background was quiet, almost nonexistent. The tight turmoil in my mind and my chest eased and my heart melted.

I didn't have a moment's hesitation about whether or not I was doing the right thing, that wasn't what the tangle of nerves tethered throughout my body was about. I just didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to say it. Emotions were going to run the gamut and I wasn't sure how to best guide them. No matter which way I approached the topic, it was going to hurt like hell, and as raw as I knew how to strip myself for Bella, I wasn't sure I had what it took to do the same for anyone but her.

I lay my head against the headrest and closed my eyes, envisioning fingers moving over the keys. I rarely played, but I knew how. More or less. Okay, I _did _know how years ago and now I probably sucked. But I still remembered where the notes where. Leftover memories of childhood lessons left a lasting impression on my brain. Still, the notes soothed me and refocused my purpose. They reminded me of the little person who always sat beside me while I practiced, her head balanced on her fist while her elbow rest on the side of the piano, or, if I was lucky that particular day, her head would rest on my shoulder. Her calmed comfort, the warmth, the brown eyes that glowed at me, haunting the backs of my eyelids every time I blinked, and the smile that seemed to balm splintering pains inside my chest that I wasn't aware I had until the heat of her washed them away and left me whole once more.

My palms were moist with sweat and the frigid, low-lying fog and perpetual dampness somehow seemed sweltering the longer I sat in the car. The sky was only just beginning to lighten, not quite to anything resembling blue just yet. It was still a muted and fuzzy grey. I felt like I was choking. I rubbed my palms over the thighs of my jeans, realising too late that they were the ones I had worn the night before when I was in the kitchen chatting to my mother while she baked her famous monkey bread to bring to Rosalie's. There were mashed banana and flour handprints on my right thigh.

_Awesome. _

I blew out a determined breath.

_I can do this. _

I opened the door. The moist air met me welcomingly as I climbed from the stifled environment of the car. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell to mute it, noticing the time–just after six AM–perfect. I flinched as the door banged shut behind me.

_Jesus, I'm on edge. This is stupid. It's not like he doesn't know..._

I tugged at the hem of my shirt and began up the walkway that I had walked a million times before. Ideally, I would have loved to come dressed in something much more appropriate for the occasion than the apparently filthy dark jeans and long sleeved thermal I had on. Something like slacks or nice jeans or at the very least a button-down shirt. Maybe a fucking tux or something–my sloppy attire somehow seemed inappropriate and slightly disrespectful. I tried to remind myself as I climbed the porch steps that the man had known me my entire life and whatever I happened to be wearing, or not wearing, was not going to factor in on his well-established opinion of me.

My chest vibrated and my lungs worked double time as they tried to force more oxygen in my body to calm it. It was having the opposite effect on me. I was feeling dizzy and slightly delirious with a lopsided swirl in my brain. My footsteps rang out loudly in my ears. Everything was simultaneously muted and over exaggerated to my senses somehow.

My palms were sweating again.

Given the hour, I knew the door would be locked. I contemplated using the key above the door jamb, but figured I should knock like a normal person. My knuckles met the wood a few times and took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the crisp air, but forgetting to exhale. Then, I took a step back, suddenly feeling like I was on top of the door and way too fucking close for when he opened it and would be standing in front of me. I remembered to breathe properly just as footsteps became audible in the foyer.

The door opened and I was immediately thankful for my foresight and early timing. He was already sporting a khaki fishing vest and held a lure in one hand. I swallowed thickly and offered a tight-lipped smile, looking him in the eye.

"Since when do you knock?" he grumbled, his brows knit together at me, continuing to fiddle with the rod in his hand.

"Oh, uh…" There was rarely a need.

"Isn't it a bit early for a visit?" I made no motion to answer, looking a little confused at him. Surely he knew where his own daughter had slept that night. "Besides, she isn't here," he offered, his usual gruff, yet friendly voice both adding to my nerves and calming them at the same time.

It was just Charlie, after all.

"Yeah, uhm...I know that," I mumbled, narrowing my eyes at him. "Obviously."

"Right. Well...thought maybe I had the days confused and she spent last night in Seattle or something."

"No, that's tonight." The following silence was heavy and awkward. Or maybe that was just _my _perception of it. Either way, the conversation was not flowing and we had spent the first minute talking about nothing even remotely close to the things I had practiced.

I sighed heavily and crammed my hands into my pockets just for something to do with them. They suddenly felt heavy and awkward at my sides. Charlie looked up from his place inside the doorway where he had been trying to tie the tip of a Mylar line to a florescent-lime wooden lure. The way he looked up abruptly, studying me with his practised eyes, and then grimaced–I knew he had done the math.

"Oh, hell," he grumbled and stalked off, his heavy wading boots clumping loudly as he left the foyer and me behind. He only wore those filthy boots indoors when Bella wasn't around to hassle at him about the mess of old, dried mud they left on the floors. The thought made me smile at his retreating form for some reason. I was ready for this.

I wasn't sure if I should follow him or if he was just setting his stuff down and coming right back. I stood there for a few uncomfortable and unsure moments before he called back to me.

"Well, don't just stand there in the doorway all day, Edward. Come in."

I rolled my eyes at the curt man who was like a second father to me, and did as he said. He was sitting in his favourite chair with the pole balanced across his knees, continuing his line prep for the day. I stood for a moment, contemplating.

I looked around the old, familiar room–the stairwell, the ratty couch, the school pictures of Bella on the fireplace mantel that she hated, and the sunny kitchen peeking out from around the corner. There was a sloppy patch job on the wall below the stairs, visible under the paint, from when Bella and I were told not to throw a football in the house and did so anyway. There was also some crayon marks near the TV where Bella got "creative" one time when she was a toddler. The Sea Green and Midnight Blue could have easily been painted over a hundred times since then. The fact that they hadn't been proved Charlie had a deeply sentimental side and had troubles letting go where it came to his only daughter. I already knew this. It explained my nerves.

Raking my fingers through my hair one last time, I sat in the middle of the couch, perching myself on the edge of the cushions with my elbows balancing on my knees while my fingertips strummed together in a steeple. I looked up and met Charlie's eyes as they _really _watched me.

He shook his head and took a deep, steadying breath for himself. "Figured this was coming. Now that you two are in the same place and all. I assumed location and whatnot was a lot of what was holding this whole thing up?" He asked, although he already knew the answer. His eyes suddenly couldn't find a place to settle. He looked everywhere but at me, reminding me that sometimes he had a great deal in common with his daughter.

On a wavering breath, I began, letting the words in my head find purchase as they stumbled out. "Look, I get that it's not easy, Charlie, but you know…"

"No, you don't," he startled me by abruptly cutting me off, looking at me once again with razor sharp eyes. Dark brown but so different than the inviting warmth of Bella's. These eyes were cold and analytical as the pierced me. Charlie, having found much more comfortable footing in a conversation where he held the upper hand as opposed to one with open emotions, noticeably relaxed. This was his element–interrogation, in his house, about his daughter. And he was right. I _didn't _know. I sat with my mouth agape, mid-sentence but effectively silenced, staring at him and waiting. "Maybe someday you will, but right now, you don't know a damn thing, Edward."

I resisted the urge to cough up a cheesy line about knowing that I loved his daughter, and sat in respectful silence, nodding politely instead.

He was emotional. Bella was literally all he had. Bella and that fishing pole that lay across his lap. And perhaps one other small thing…

I had come to ask his permission to take away two of the three. It was going to break his heart no matter how much it was also going to please him. And all the advanced notice in the world meant fuck-all when parting with two-thirds of your heart in one fowl swoop. I forced myself not to utter the old adage of "not losing a daughter...", because Charlie was right, what the fuck did I know?

"Fair enough," I conceded, nodding appreciatively. "But you _do_ know me, Charlie." I made a point to make direct eye contact, respectfully holding his gaze, not challenging him, simply _reminding_ him. "I know we've had our disagreements in the past, but Jesus, Charlie, you may as well be a second father to me. I respect you just as much. And I want _your _respect just as much. And, I don't know, this is life, isn't it? It's how it goes. Little girls grow up, fall in love, and get married. Then they live happily ever after." My empty hands gestured in front of me as if to showcase the hypothetical scenario I was describing. "And that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be. It's what you want for her, I know it is. And I'll give it to her, I promise."

I was failing miserably. I had somehow cut right to the chase and missed out on telling him all the endearing ways I felt about his only child. All the ways I would vow to protect and love her. All the way I already had.

Nevertheless, his eyes filled with tears. I pretended not to notice. He looked away chewing on his upper lip. His moustache twitched with the movement.

_So similar. _

"So…if Bella has to grow up, fall in love...get _married,_" I continued with a soft, sincere tone, trying to backtrack and touch on all the things I had barreled forward without mentioning before. "If she is going to spend her entire life with some man by her side, shouldn't it be me? You know I'm capable. You know I love her. _I_ know you trust me."

I knew I had him. Not because of the way the ice cracked and drifted away from the surface of his eyes, or because of the way his neck melted and his head dropped to hang suspended over his lap and fishing rod, but because even I could hear the sincerity and conviction in my words as I spoke them. It was an indisputable truth. No one could love Bella as much as I could. She was my reason for living and I wasn't naïve enough to ever jeopordise that. I would honour it every second of my life. I had lived without her once before and those were the darkest days of my life. Never again would I risk that level of pain. I would worship Isabella for as long as we both lived–which was precisely the purpose of the conversation at hand.

"You're a good kid," was all he could muster. The tears in his eyes thickened and his voice betray him. Charlie sucked at emotional displays and I knew how much this moment in time was killing him. I wanted to hug the poor guy, but figured that wouldn't help the situation. I sat the quietly, waiting for him to work through it.

He looked up eventually, nodding to his lap as if he had come to some sort of resolution in his own mind. His eyes met mine solidly and the bittersweet emotion read clearly in them, but so did his genuine respect for me. I smiled widely and basked in the respect. I deserved it.

His eyes slid slowly over to the mantel where a crowded cluster of cheap, mismatched frames held Bella's school pictures as well as a few candids, mostly of her and Charlie.

"Tell me," he began, still focused on the photos, his eyes watery and distant, while his mind saw much more than mere pictures above a fireplace. His heart, no doubt, was constricting with memory. "What do _you _see when you look at her? I know what _I _see, but...I'm curious. Please, tell me."

_What do I see? _

I took a moment to think honestly about his question, wanting to give him the most earnest answer I could formulate, considering it was all he was asking of me. He took my silence as an opportunity to elaborate.

"I see a little red face wrapped up in that pink and yellow blanket Renee knit when she was pregnant because she swore up and down that she just _knew _the baby was going to be a girl. As if she could really sense that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not discrediting motherly intuition, but... And in the end, she was right, so... What the hell do I know? Dammit if Bella wasn't wrapped up in that thing every day for the entire first year of her life at least."

I knew the blanket he was speaking of. It was still neatly folded across the foot of her bed in Baltimore, just as it had been in Tempe.

Charlie's words trailed off, but I knew he wasn't finished just yet. Far from it. There were more memories lined up on that mantel and he wasn't finished working through them. He continued staring at the frames. His fingers drummed against his leg. His moustache twitched with half-suppressed smiles spurred on by each new memory as they moved across his mind.

I waited quietly. Smiling with him. He eventually continued.

"I see the little girl with holes in every pair of pants she ever owned. Scraped knees, running into the house, screen door at the back of the kitchen slamming shut behind her, screaming about a spider on the porch or an ant on her tire swing."

I laughed heartily. She did that a lot when she was young. Hell, she did that to me last Saturday back in Baltimore.

"Her first pair of roller skates. Those plastic adjustable things that clipped over her regular shoes. I think they were blue, weren't they?" He didn't look up from the ground. It wasn't a question he wanted me to interrupt him by answering. "I took her out into the road to practice and she clung to my elbow so tight it actually hurt, but I didn't say a word. I never would. I just enjoyed every second of it. I can still hear her tiny voice, Edward. It feels like yesterday to me, I swear it does. 'Don't let me fall, Daddy', she said."

_They were blue and orange. _

The sheen over his eyes thickened even more. When the red splotches began to form on his skin between them and his lips tightened together I knew, following the chronological progression of his thoughts, he was thinking about losing his wife, his daughter losing her mother. His pain was fuller. Harder to put into words…for anyone, but especially for Charlie.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this. I wasn't supposed to be sitting here having this conversation all by myself, Edward. I just wasn't. I'm not the one who knows what to say at times like this..." He continued to stare at the floor as he spoke. He was wrong, though. He was saying all the right things. It just wasn't easy for him. And he deserved an answer to his question.

"I see the same things." I cut him some slack, knowing he needed a few moments to compose himself. While he did so, I filled the silence for him. His eyes looked up to mine and narrowed, disbelievingly. Obviously, he _would _be skeptical of what I meant. Naturally, I couldn't see the little pink blanket or all the private moments they shared as father and daughter. But everything I saw was along same vein as the things he had mentioned. I didn't just see some hot girl I happened to be dating. I saw tenderness. Vulnerability. Strength. Beauty. Hope. _Everything. _

"I was there for all of that, Charlie. I was _right there. _I see the little girl who was told notto poke at the bees nest in your backyard one summer, but did it anyway and got stung so badly that her eye swelled shut for two weeks. The girl who used to make up those ridiculous dance moves to the longest songs _ever _and force us to watch them over and over again. And I clapped every time.

"It was me who was right there with her when she cried the entire first day of kindergarten and every day after Renee died. I see the little girl who tripped over her untied tennis shoes all summer long, scraping up both knees so badly I swear by the end of the summer she should have been down the bone. We had secret handshakes and, didn't we even have a secret _language _one time? If I recall correctly, _we _didn't even know what in the hell we were saying, but we found it hilarious that no one else did either.

"I see the girl who fell off the rocks at the falls and split her chin open on the Fourth of July one year. I see that scar underneath her chin every single time I look at her. Because I was there too, and I may have only been ten years old, or whatever, but I was right there. She hit her head when she fell and knocked herself unconscious. I reached for her but I wasn't fast enough. But I tried my damndest to hold her above the water while you and my father leapt over picnic tables and ran into the falls fully clothed to scoop her up and carry her out, but I would have sworn you were moving in slow-motion at the time. My dad examined her while she lay sprawled out on the rocks regaining consciousness and...I may have been a kid, Charlie, but I was just as fucking scared for those forty-five seconds that she wasn't with it as you were. Because I always knew. Even when I was too young or stupid to realise _what _exactly it was that I knew. She's everything. And I kiss that tiny scar on her chin probably once a day. I don't even know if she knows why, but I do. Because now, not only do I _know _all that she is to me, but I appreciate what I know. I cherish it. No one can love her the way I do. No one. I have everything. Every tiny little piece that makes Bella who and what she is contains pieces of me as well. We're so intertwined with one another that you could never cut out even a part of one of us without hurting the other. She already belongs to me, Charlie, just as much as I do to her"

The man was still far from re-composed, but he sat there nodding along silently with me as I spoke.

"I have all of those memories and _so _many more. Things you don't even know about." My voice was suddenly cracking and my lips curled back tightly as I spoke, the truth behind my words overpowering even me. "On locker room benches, hugging her until she calmed down after being made fun of for God knows what because high school girls are catty bitches. Underneath bleachers, cradling her as the gravel dug sharply into my knees until she stopped crying because some girl made a thoughtless remark one night at a football game about how Bella should consider herself lucky she didn't have a nosy mother who drilled her about boys all the time. And I'm the one who slugged Mike Newton after hearing a rumour that he was spouting off shit that I knew wasn't true about him and Bella the night they went to that stupid dance together. It was me who threatened him to tell the truth to his buddies or he'd have me and Emmett to deal with the next day." I smiled at the memory.

"So many of our own private memories, Charlie. Little things. Big things." I treaded carefully. "Just... but they aren't enough. I want more. I love her so much I can hardly stand it. Sometimes, it's all I can do to keep from breaking down and crying at her feet, which to be honest, I'm not ashamed to admit that I've done on more than one occasion. Hell, I've begged her several times to go to a courthouse, say 'fuck-it' to the big process, and just marry me on the spot. But she was always the voice of reason, knowing that more than us, our families deserved the formalities and the celebration. So, here I am." My hands were gathered politely in my lap and I dipped my head down to lock eyes with the man before continuing to speak. "_Formally,_ asking for your permission to carry on as I have always lived. Right by your daughter's side."

It was the respectful thing to do. To ask. It was also an icebreaker for the other request I was going to have.

There wasn't much more that could be said after that. Charlie gave me everything I asked from him. He shook my hand and then wished me luck and patience and a good healthcare plan. He followed me, standing in the open doorway as I walked down the steps of the front porch.

"Hey," he called to me. I turned back. He was leaning against his arm on the doorframe, staring at the peeling white paint intently. He scraped away a few chunks that were flaking off and sniffed loudly before speaking again.

"Time, Edward. _Time_." His eyes that had been intently focused on the peeling paint found mine, glassy and, perhaps remorseful. I couldn't have been sure from so far away. His eyes held things that I felt I was unprepared to recognise being a third of his age. Things I prayed I would never fully understand. "I wish I would have had more of it to just…_love. _You never know how much time you're gonna get. And…well, to be honest, Kid, I've been getting a little impatient with you. So stop wasting _time_. Just…appreciate it…each other." He was back to studying the paint like it was his job. "And she damn well better get that happily ever after you promised me, Edward, or so help me."

I smiled at the soft threat, appreciating his need to end the conversation that way. It had been a very emotional morning. I doubted he would go fishing after all of that. There were several dusty shoeboxes atop Bella's old bedroom closet that I had a feeling were suddenly beckoning to him. Faded Polaroids that were going to be unearthed. Teddy bears that were going to be clutched. Memories that were going to be cherished and held on to. Smiles that were going to be had, even through the tears.

The anxious giddiness that had been at bay while I spoke with Charlie began to bubble inside my chest and flood my heart. I thought about what Charlie said concerning time, but wasn't sure just yet what I wanted to do about it. I only knew that I now had everything I needed to do it once I figured it out. Unconsciously, my fingertips caressed the small velvet box that was now safe in my mashed-banana-and-flour pants pocket. I looked up at him, grinning like a fool.

"Believe me, Chief Swan, she will."

* * *

As always, a million and one thanks to all of you. You have been so supportive and encouraging while waiting.

(notice I didn't say 'patient'? lmao)

This obviously isn't the end, but it's just around the corner.

In the meantime, is there something in SECRETward's pocket or is he just happy to see us?

*hangs head over the cheesy joke*

LOVE ME THROUGH IT.

Air

~xox~


	42. Torn

I KNOW OKAY? IM SORRY BUT RL LIFE IS DEMANDING AND CHILDREN ARE DEMANDING AND I AM TIRED AND JLJK;DFLKF

So...now that that is out of the way, where were we:

Oh yes, Edward got a ring, no big deal.

We are nearly caught up with the prologue...pssshw.

This chapter is 2/3 smut...whatever...

Am I forgiven?

In all honesty, if you are still with me on this one, thank you so much from the very bottom of my heart. This tale kills me. These characters own me. And love is so goddamn grand.

#MYBOYFRIENDISENGLISH

Ahem...I couldn't resist.

Here's the next installment.

xox

* * *

Bella called a family meeting. It wasn't as if I didn't already know what the meting was about, but still, a nervous, giddy sort of energy pulsed through me. I was excited. For Bella. I was proud. Of Bella. My soul beat for her. It was her time. And of course, her "family meeting" consisted of Charlie...and my family. Because my family was hers. Mine was hers. Always.

"So what's this soiree all about, Bells?" Charlie's gruffness broke over the top of the humming bubble of chatter as Bella and I rounded the corner into my parents' front room. She shot me an anxious sideways glance and then parted her lips, as if the begin chewing on her lower one, but then thought better of it, trying to break herself of the nervous habit. Instead, she smiled insecurely at me.

I pursed my lips and pulled my brows together, my eyes narrowing at her. She was being ridiculous. In a couple of minutes everyone in the room was going to be whooping and congratulating her, eagerly brimming with just as much pride as in her as I had.

Everyone was already seated except for me and Bella. It gave the entire meeting a very formal feeling that I was sure wasn't helping Bella's anxiety any. I nodded toward the overstuffed leather arm chair next to her and she took a seat…on the very edge. I could physically _feel _her trying to refrain from picking at her nails or bouncing her legs. I chuckled silently to myself and sat on the arm next to her, stretching my hand out along the chair back behind Bella to steady myself as my legs swung casually in the air. I was well aware what it looked like. Me being that close to Bella. My arm, for all intents and purposes, was around her. For a breif moment my sister's eyes widened while she stared at the floor before she artfully recomposed herself. I chuckled even deeper, this time not so silently. Because, _Really, Allie, you think we are going to hold a fucking meeting to announce our relationship? Give us a tad bit of credit. _

Beside me, Bella took a deep breath. I knew her better than anyone in the room. I felt her anxiety at being the centre of attention, even in a room full of the people who loved her the most. I felt her heart screaming against her chest and I saw her back rising and falling rapidly as air came and went faster than it was meant to. She was worried about Charlie's reaction. Of course. It was only natural. And no amount of my own encouragment was able to convince her that he was going to be fine. In the end. She just had to live it.

I knew her, and I knew she was just going to rip the band-aid off. My smile widened waiting for her to do it.

"So, I kind of wrote a book. It's four hundred and twenty two pages and it's being published as we speak."

Silence. Eyes. They narrowed and then widened as Bella's abrupt words slowly registered.

Bella wrote an actual book. It was being published.

After the praise and congratulations and general doting everyone bestowed on Bella just as I knew they would, the obvious first question was the subject matter of the book. It was unavoidable. It was why Bella hadn't mentioned it to anyone but me yet. She was afraid of rejection, afraid of hurting anyone, it was so far from her original intent with writing the book.

"Yeah. _That_." She looked to me for encouragement. I winked and nodded, hoping she would continue and she did. "It's a little touchy. I mean…well, at first it was nothing, I was just fooling around, bored and curious and…but then some people that I worked with, they knew other people and…" So many damn eyes. Expectant eyes. Loving eyes. And one pair of eyes diverting all attention and staring at her feet as they shuffled on the floor in front of her. Anxious eyes and red cheeks. "It's a collection of journal entries that bounce back and forth between me and Mom about life, love, family...that sort of stuff. Two very different perspectives that when combined are actually really sweet and the message they create is kinda, well...it's..."

"Beautiful," I helped. Because it was. More than that but there wasn't a word for how powerful and effective Bella's novel was. It was going to be a message of love and life that lingers with the reader for days, or maybe forever as that haunting little reminder to live in the moment and surround yourself with love, because in the end, what the hell else was there? No. There wasn't a word. But I didn't need to tell that to anyone in the room. One quick scan of their faces caught in various forms of thought and I knew they all got it.

"Mom is credited as a co-author, of course, if you're wondering." Her cheeks matched the red leather settee visible from around the corner in the den and her words tapered off quietly as if she were ashamed of something, which was silly. My hand slid down the back of the chair and found her body. My thumb and forefinger knead gently into the small of her back while my eyes blurred over staring at the fabric of her shirt, waiting, along with her, for everyone's reactions.

"Oh, Honey," my mother was the first to speak. "It's a dream come true in so many ways. Renee would be honoured, Bella. And so proud, you have to know that."

"She does," I interjected softly on her behalf, still running my fingers across her back rhythmically.

Bella's eyes lifted off the stray piece of thread she was tinkering with at the hem of her shirt and she looked, questioningly at my mother. My mother was the gentlest, kindest, warmest woman on the planet. She naturally overflowed with an honest love. I knew that with one silent exchange, one look, she would be able to absolve Bella of any lingering doubts that publishing her mother's words was the right thing to do. I was counting on it. Bella smiled slowly but sincerely as others began to speak up and reiterate my mother' sentiments. Bella had done the right thing.

The minutes that followed held nothing but a steady stream of praise and kind, confident words directed at Bella. My mother said she wasn't surprised because according to her, Bella had an elegant way of shaping words, a gift she had received from her mother. My father slapped her knee gently and hugged her and told her how proud he was of her. Alice squealed repeatedly and planned Bella's book tour stops aloud, ticking them off on her fingers, correlating, naturally, with the country's finest shopping destinations. I expected no less. It was an outpouring of love and support. But when it trickled into stillness there was one contribution glaringly absent.

Charlie.

"Dad?" Bella's hesitant voice made things inside me run hot and cold at the same time. I had been glaring silent daggers at the foolish man for the last five minutes willing him to fucking say something, knowing it was his approval Bella feared and longed for the most. He hadn't so much as lifted his gaze from his own two feet and so he had hardly noticed my looks. "Are you angry at me?" My heart broke to a thousand pieces. Mother fucker. Gun or no gun strapped to his hip I vowed right then and there that if he broke her heart in any way I would drag him the fuck outside and let him have it. I tried to have more faith in the man. Still, my fingers noticeable trembled at Bella's back waiting for his response. I silently willed it to be one of encouragement.

It took him a minute. All eyes bounced between Bella and Charlie. Trying to be discreet and respectful but dying to know what Charlie thought. Even mine. I was about to stand and grab him by the collar aimed for the front door, prepared to throw his own words at him from a few days before, the day he gave me Renee's ring–words of love and respect and support and never having enough time when you need it. Thankfully, he finally cleared his throat and piped up.

"My daughter just told me she's going to be a published author. What kind of father would I be if I were angry at you, Bells? I guess I'm in shock, and... I sort of feel like I've been sharing a lot of different little pieces of your mother with everyone else lately, and I'm afraid that means I'm losing those pieces for myself…"

I knew he meant me. I nodded to myself silently. My fingertips slipped passed the hem of Bella's tee shirt and across the top of her jeans just above her hipbone, needing the reassuring skin-to-skin contact no matter how small. It was silken and perfect under my fingertips and I squeezed her flesh firmly, reminding her I was still there and that everything was going to be okay.

"Oh, Daddy. I'm so sorry," Bella began with tears coating her throat and cheeks but Charlie wasn't having it.

"No, Bella," he put his hand up in front of his face, big and firm, to halt her in her path, shaking his head at himself. "Don't be ridiculous, these are my own insecurities. Sharing doesn't mean losing." He unmistakably locked his eyes on mine for a second before continuing. I briefly wondered if anyone else noticed. "I couldn't be more proud of you, Isabella Marie Swan. I couldn't be more proud." His words tapered off under his breath and we all knew Charlie well enough to appreiciate both his sincerity and his discomfort with emotional displays. We respected his response. It was all the validation Bella needed. She smiled with watery eyes at him and I gently squeezed her hip once more.

Later that evening, Bella took Charlie back to their house so she could show him her manuscript. It was bound to be an emotional night for the two of them. I stayed at my parents so they could have a proper chance to do their thing. It was always so bittersweet for me when Bella spendt one-on-one time with Charlie. I knew they needed the time together, but I missed having her within arm's reach. I missed her warmth. Not just the tangible heat of her body near mine, but the flood of contentedness she filled my very soul with just by being her. By smiling at me, or running the backs of her fingers across the nape of my neck. By twining her fingers with mine always reaching for me whenever I was near, but not near enough for her liking. To say that I missed her was near blasphemy. I was simply incomplete without her.

My father came down the stairs and found me half asleep sprawled across the same overstuffed chair I had shared with Bella earlier. My arms dangled over one end above my head, my right leg draped over the other end, while my left was bent with my foot planted on the floor. He kicked my foot that held LL my weight and nearly caused me to fall off the chair onto the floor, jolting me from my half sleep, half daydream of Bella's fingers on me.

I muttered something unintelligent, leftovers from the fringe of sleep, and swiped the heel of my palm across my mouth, wondering if I was drooling, I felt so relaxed and lost in the daydream.

He laughed at me as he pulled his slacks up at the knees and sat on the corner of the coffee table to face me. A move so signature and familiar it was everthing I would always remember about him. His eyes leveled me. I knew immediately he was in both a serious and a playful mood simulatenously. My ears perked up even if my body remained draped over the furniture.

"So..." he began, his eyes giving away a smile before his lips did. "Was it just me, or, did a lot of Charlie's little 'sharing' speech seem directed right at you? Anything you aren't telling me, Son?"

The man was too observant for his own good. Or _my _own good, as it were. I momentarily entertained the idea of dodging his questions over the next four days before Bella and I left town again, but quickly decided that was not the kind of relationship we had. So, I relented. I pushed myself upright and mirrored his stance, two feet separating us...and a lot of suspended air.

"Yeah, fine, I'll tell you. But Alice has known for approximately thirty-six hours and hasn't let up about it once and so help me, Dad, if you follow suit…" He raised his hands in mock surrender, a ridiculous smile breaking free. It was obvious he had already guessed. I filled in the blanks.

He nodded to himself, at times seeming to consciously stifle the wide grin at his mouth, wrestling it into something more modest while he processed everything I said. "Well, I suppose I get where Charlie is coming from a bit on this one," he said, looking up to meet my eye, no hint of jest or humour in his own. "It's like how every once in a while something will spark a memory of your mother's and then I'll notice a few select photo albums in the study are a little less dusty than the others. And even if I didn't notice that, I can always tell when she's gone back and looked at them because for the next few days she's a little more…passionate…about life in general, you kids, and just…being reminded how precious this whole game we have going for us is. Those books are all she has left now. Photos of a lifetime ago, a lifetime lost…. She wouldn't part with them in a million years, it would break her heart."

I nodded in agreement.

"With that said," he continued. "You definitely made the right decision there." He squeezed my shoulder and his small was five hundred watt. I could tell he was holding back congratulating me, knowing I hadn't actually done anything yet.

I left Washington a few days later with Bella asleep, as always, curled up in the small seat beside me, her head on my arm and a lot on my mind. I had plans to make. They had to be perfect. I had the words of two father's fighting for dominance inside my brain. I was beginning to panic a little about how exactly I wanted to pop the question.

Months later, I had yet to come to any conclusions. And, I was running out of time, or so it seemed.

"Roll over," I growled lowly in her ear, my mind getting the better of my mood.

My voice was nothing but a breath on her bare skin, thick with need, cracking from inactivity. It had been at least an hour since I spoke any real words. Nothing but grunts and groans and inarticulate murmurings had left my lips since the sun had set and Bella walked through my bedroom door. She was on her back with one leg stretched out across my mattress and the other draped over my shoulder, relaxed open, while her fingers twisted painful knots in my hair with each pass of my tongue.

She didn't hesitate at my request. In the blink of an eye she was flat on her stomach stretched out on my old squeaky bed in New York. My right hand that held her knee, followed around to the back of her leg and rode up, over skin so pale it glowed in the moonlight and felt like silk under my palm. Up the back of her thigh, slowly I repositioned her leg and pulled gently until she had all of her weight settled on her left hip and shimmied down the leg I was straddling until I could reach what I wanted better. Her right arm stretched out slow and shaky until it was straight. Her fist balled into the blankets and a muffled cry filled my bedroom. It was a good cry–the kind that almost sent me over the edge with her just from sheer absorption in the moment. I lived and breathed to hear those types of cries on her lips.

She trusted me. She knew no matter what I asked her to do, I would never hurt her, disrespect her, make her uncomfortable, or compromise her. She was safe with me. Always. It was a blind faith. A beautiful thing that I was reminded of as she allowed me to push and pull at her body, getting her into the exact position I needed, accessing her more private places.

I ran my tongue across her one last time and withdrew my fingers, planting my hand firmly across her right hip, fingers digging in just enough to hint at the kind of pain that could feel so fucking good in the right moments. Moments like that one. Urgent times. Times when you wanted to leave little purple circles where your fingertips had been the night before so she would smile and wince and remember the next day in the shower...and with any luck, the one after that.

Her face was buried in my pillow but angled sideways so I could just make out her profile against my dark pillowcase. I could see her jaw was slackened and she was gasping for her breath. I curled the tips of my fingers underneath her hip and she squeaked. It made pieces of me jolt and twitch with the noise. Her hips rose off the bed and she did that kind of subtle shit intentionally, grinding her ass into me. Begging. Whining for more. For me. Even though she appeared spent. Need could be such an all-consuming thing sometimes. Agonising until that first balming wave of sensation washes over and makes it all go away.

I pressed my chest to her back. Slick skin met slick skin and my breath was hot in her hear. "What?" I practically snarled at her as she whined a second time, longer and more desperate.

"Are you _trying_ to bruise me?" she whimpered, wiggling her hip that was locked in my hands vice grip.

"Yes." I dug a little deeper. "Any more questions?"

"Do you plan on following through with any of this or are you just going to keep marking me up for kicks?"

I laughed as my knee gently met the back of hers and pushed her leg out further, making room. I started at the dip just above her ass–the little spot where dimples and porcelain skin came together, where sweat pooled in heated moments and where my lips fit perfectly. I pressed them to her skin. Softly. I moved a little higher and my tongue peeked out to taste salt. Higher still and she arced her back and pushed her hips toward me, which brought my centre flatter against her ass, pressing her to the bed. Higher and my body now hovered over hers in a line, the head of my dick pushed at her entrance while my palms smoothed out over her skin and ran up her arms to intertwine my fingers with hers. Our hands outstretched on either side of our bodies.

My weight was pressed entirely against her and I would have felt bad, like I may have been crushing her into the mattress, except that I slid inside her and the wail of relief and pleasure that left her lips told me she couldn't have cared less.

I rest against her, digging my fists into the mattress with her hands still laced underneath mine. We found a smooth rhythm that felt so fluid and perfect my neck folded and my forehead crashed against her shoulder blades and salt from my eyes mixed with salt from her skin and together we moved until we could move no longer.

Bella squirmed just enough to roll over onto her back beneath my hold on her. I raised myself on shaky arms to allow her the movement and then collapsed against her again. She smiled up at me and I slid my hands under her head, cradling, smiling back. I would never forget holding her exactly like that first time we made love. I was always tender with her, even when I wasn't. She was my life. In the end, she knew I would always value that above all else. Her fingers shook as they reached up and twisted wet pieces of my hair that fell over my eyes when it got too long.

"I'm going to miss you," she whispered. My heart sunk. My face planted into the warm crook of her neck and I shook my head back and forth as if that could change the fact that in less than six hours she would be on a plane headed to Seattle. Where she was going to stay for three months. Without me.

Devastating. All over again.

There was a little box in my sock drawer just ten feet from me... My fingers twitched to jump up and grab it and place it where it belonged.

But… I didn't want to act out of desperation. And I didn't want to do it and then be separated again. I just wanted... I'm not sure what I was aiming for. Perfection? Never having to be separated. A house that felt like home every time I walked through the door. A yard where we could lay out on the grass together and stare up at the stars, content. Security. Organization. Was it all too high of a standard? I was beginning to doubt myself.

"Edward, don't…" she whispered. And she was right. I wasn't being fair. How dare I make her feel guilty or any sadder than she already felt. She was realizing her dream. At twenty-six. Who does that? I was so fucking proud that I forced myself in that moment to suck it up.

Bella's novel was completed and in the final stages of production. She was headed to Washington to oversee the details and sign some documents for publication, having chosen a literary agent from Seattle knowing it would very soon be our hometown anyway. All of her dreams were coming true and honestly, I was so proud. It was almost enough to mute the pain of separation. Almost. Not quite.

The book wasn't the only reason Bella was heading to Seattle. Ryan Donohue discovered a small, two storey farmhouse-style home that he claimed was everything Bella and I would ever want and more in a piece of property and that if we were serious about being in the market one of us had to come look at this house and give the ball a little push so it could begin rolling. He claimed it was perfect and would not be on the market long. Bella had a mountain of documents to go over with her agent and publisher as it was that she was trying to put off until June, but...it seemed inevitable. She was being pulled away. There was no way I could leave New York in the final months of my dissertation. Thus, our impending separation.

They were just more puzzle pieces dropping in place and with each one a nervous, excited buzz began to build somewhere in my subconscious, knowing we were so close. We both felt it, boiling around in our blood, vibrating with emotion and excitment and together we finalized our separate careers we had worked so hard on, and came together as one to move forward. Figuratively speaking, of course, considering in a few short hours we would actually be driven apart.

_Necessary semantics, _I tried to reason with myself as I held her body as close as it could physically get, sticky with shared sweat, limp with satisfaction, warm with contentedness. I stared at the ceiling and traced invisible shapes along her spine as the room went from black, to grey, to gold and I knew our time was up. All the while a subtle pulsing sensation seemed to rattle my left ear as the engagement ring called to me now that it was back in my possession after a very tricky sizing situation making it smaller while preserving the most special aspect of the ring in the process.

The battling emotions still swirled around a little inside me while I smiled unconvincingly and waved at her as she shuffled her way through the airport security line-up. I really thought we were done with that shit. I thought we were in the same fucking place at the same time and that it was forever. Time hated me. The feeling was mutual. Washington was going to end up being everything to us. I literally had a countdown timer running on my cell until the day I was set to receive my doctorate assuming everything between then and now went smoothly. The fact that it was close enough that I could use a timer was going to have to be thrilling enough to get me through our time apart.

Still, I found myself sulking in the back of a cab as rain beat against the window and the grey New York City skies mirrored my soul. I killed the time by making plans. Or rather...revisiting the never-ending "how I want to ask Bella to marry me" folder inside my brain. Once we were reunited, never again would the airport warrant my heartbreak or Bella's tears. A house. A ring. A future. The following year was going to be a big one. I quieted the swell in my heart with that promise and watched as the seconds ticked down on the timer.

Three months had never dragged so slowly in all of fucking history.

I looked forward to hearing Bella's voice in my ear every night as she buzzed excitedly about the progress her book was making and how anxious and excited she was. I was able to hold my shit together long enough every night to encourage and congratulate her, and tell her how proud I was. How proud everyone was.

My love was her conviction and by the time we would hang up, Bella would be settled and I would be so fucking lonely my heart felt like lead. I knew she felt it too, and I would never be as callous as to say that it was easier for her because she was in Washington surrounded by our family, our new home, and the buzz of her book, but New York was suddenly a very bleak and cold place. It literally held nothing for me anymore. All the quaint little deli's Bella and I frequented mocked me whenever I walked to and from campus. My Penn Station Multi-Ride Pass nearly broke my heart when I discovered it between two credit cards in my wallet one morning while trying to buy coffee at a café that no longer meant anything to me. And I couldn't quite bring myself to wash my bed sheets because Bella's sweet scent lingered on them. I couldn't wait to move on. My Doctorate could not come fast enough. I gave it all I had hoping it would be enough and I could get the fuck out of the city.

As far as the house went, it appeared Ryan was right. Bella fell in love with the property immediately. Her love was infectious every time we spoke and I could feel it registering through her excited voice in my ear. She emailed me somewhere in the ballpark of three hundred pictures and I was quick to fall in love as well. My trust in her was implicit, and if she thought that was our home than that was our home. We had a lot to arrange and it wasn't going to be easy, given my stack of loans, essential unemployment, and Bella's unstable, intangible income. But we were sure. And so it we would fight for it. It was what we did. We never stopped fighting for us. Nor would we.

While one more thing brought us closer together, the _other _hung over my head–which was just so wrong. Asking Bella to be my wife was the most natural step forward if ever we took one. It should never feel like a weight on my shoulders. I was clearly being ridiculous and over-thinking it. And holding onto the ring, trying to plan some grand proposal had been a mistake. It was me and Bella. I should have asked her to marry me as soon as the ring was ready, but there wasn't much I could do after the fact. She was on the other side of the country, and while I finally admitted to myself it didn't need to be elaborate, I was still pretty sure my proposal needed to be in person. I was just going to have to wait a little while longer. Again, time could go fuck itself.

Meanwhile, I grew more and more anxious, desperate to be within arm's reach of Bella again so I could right the situation. The nights were long. I told myself the waiting game had been the right approach in the long run. If we had gotten married years ago, one of the ten thousand times either of us broke down somewhere in the middle of the fight, we would have never accomplished the things we were accomplishing. We would have bought a small house, maybe even an apartment, or handed over every dime we had to rent, probably on the east coast, which certainly wasn't our future little piece of perfection in Washington. We would have had kids right away because I was desperate for them and Bella craved motherhood as well. We wouldn't have been able to stop ourselves. We would have never regretted it, but I also would have never finished my doctorate and Bella would not have had the time to write a book. No, waiting was the right thing, and in a few short months we would finally have it all so it wouldn't make a difference. Knowing that. Being sure of that...didn't make the time pass any easier. If anything, I grew increasingly more impatient as the timer seemed to go nowhere.

Over the years I had grown accustomed to Bella's warm body in my bed. In her bed. It didn't matter where, but we were rarely apart in the latter days of our joined stay on the east coast. Every night Bella spent in Seattle I fell asleep fighting a heavy pit in the bottom of my stomach and woke convinced I could smell her sugary sweetness next to me, even feel the soft suppleness of her body under my arm as it lay across her side of my bed, before I would open my eyes and remember that I was alone.

"Mmm...?" I groaned one night, extending my arms and legs, shuddering as I stretched. I opened my eyes and blinked them several times in slow, slumberous succession, crawling laboriously from the deep sleep I was in. I was on my stomach, my right arm dangling off the side of my bed. I dragged my other hand up to my face, sliding it across the empty, cold sheets on the other side of the bed, so I could rub sleepily at my eyes. I tried to wrap my head around why I was awake when clearly I did not want to be. My mind was unsettled in a faint, nagging way. I squinted at my bedside table at the glowing red numbers. It was 4:54AM…make that 4:55AM, as the clocked turned over while I stared stupidly at it, the red blurring against the black in my groggy vision.

That was when my cell that lay plugged into the charger next to the alarm clock started vibrating angrily. A loud rock tune blared in the silent room. Then it came back to me. My phone ringing…that was what had woken me up, only it had stopped before I could realise it. And now there it was ringing again. Fuck.

In rapid fire succession my thoughts smeared together, noting the time, the time difference back home, and the fact that whoever it was that was calling had obviously called multiple times. I dedicated the last eight years of my life to the study of human psychology, and still sometimes the brain amazed me. Like, how a trillion little flickering thoughts could fire off like a round of bullets through a mind in the time it took to blink an eye. Charged with a surge of panic infused with adrenaline, a jolt of terror ran through me wondering what could have happened to make someone back home call me at two in the morning their time.

While I had many jerk-off friends in New York that would not have thought twice about calling at any hour if they were hammered, somehow none of them crossed my mind. My only thought was my family, Washington, Bella. The by-product of knowing I was so far from them.

I quickly reached out and grabbed the vibrating, sreaming device off the table, registering Charlie's home phone number before I answered.

_Fuck. _

"What's wrong?" I croaked out in a hoarse, frantic tone.

"Edward," she whispered.

And just as fast as the fear gripped me, it was assuaged with one little breath in my ear. Because no matter what was wrong, Bella was alright. I was so relieved I couldn't even bother to feel guilty about that.

I was wide awake, blood still drumming loudly in my ears. I flipped over and sat up, hearing a faint sniffle and a stifled sob on Bella's end of the phone. I leapt off the bed ready to throw on whatever clothes I grabbed first and make a mad dash for the airport. I stopped with a pair of jeans in my hand.

"Bella, what's wrong? You have to say more, baby, you're kind of freaking me out," I begged her through the phone.

"Edward," she panted, my name petering out into a sob.

"Isabella!" I snarled at her, pulling my jeans up and sliding one foot into a runner…no socks. "Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?" My heart and mind were racing each other, trying to see which one could kill me first. Then, I remembered the number that read on my call display just before I answered the phone. She was at home. I somehow found relief in that. She wasn't hurt. I suddenly realised no one was likely hurt. Well, not physically anyhow.

More gentle sobbing on her end of the phone.

"Bella…?" I tried again. No answer. "I love you." It was the only thing to say. After a full minute of non-verbal communication, my heart just knew–its match was breaking.

"I just... Edward… argh…" she growled into the phone. I squinted my eyes into the empty room, where the sun streaked brightly through the closed shutters in bright yellow strips as it rose somewhere in the span of the previous five minutes. It seemed wrong for the sunshine to find me there. "I need you." Bella finally managed a complete sentence. The way she moaned the word "need" left no room for interpretation. She wasn't in peril; there was no intruder in her home, a fire or horrible car accident. There was no sickness or imminent threat. All of my family members were in tact. There was nothing but an aching heart and a longing body.

I sighed with relief and lay back down onto the bed. My half-on runner dropped to the floor. The other one was still on.

"Jesus, Isabella. Is that all?" I admonished.

"All?" she wailed into the phone. "All! Are you kidding me? All…Edward, I haven't seen you in over a month. I'm dying here. My heart actually hurts and my skin just needs to feel your hands on it. My days are incomplete. To not be directly sharing all of this book mayhem with you and talking to you in bed at night and seeing you. It's killing me. I need you."

"I know, Bella. I'm sorry. I didn't me to diminish all of that believe me. You think I'm not suffering out here? I fucking hate it here without you. I did't mean to laugh, I'm just relived that that's all it is. You had me scared."

"I'm sorry. I can imagine it's a bit unnerving to have me call at this hour. I just…"

And just like that, the adrenaline faded to blackness, my heart cradled her voice, I lay me head back and closed my eyes, letting my words take over.

"You just what, baby?" My heart clenched. In all of our years apart, we'd never... But she was clearly very upset. It was deeply ingrained into my nature to feel the need to comfort her. It killed me that I wasn't laying next to her, able to wrap her in my arms and kiss her forehead, humming to her and soothing her. Granted, if I was there the entire conversation would be irrelevant.

"I had a dream about you. A _really _good dream," Bella whispered into the receiver. She placed a lot of emphasis on the word "really" and I could picture her big brown eyes fluttering back in her head as she said it, knowing exactly what she looked like in such a state.

I smiled widely against the phone, scooting down in the bed until I was lying flat on my back, any prior worry completely forgotten.

"Oh yeah? How good?" I teased.

"Really, really, fucking good."

My eyes were huge listening to her needy little voice, swearing like she was me or something. Bella rarely swore. It was sexy in that moment, against the back drop of her heavy, breathy sighs, and the weight that was washing over me as my former adrenaline receded.

"Edward, you don't understand. Like…I've obviously dreamt about you before. God, I dream about you all the time," she began. I smiled like an idiot against the phone, licking my lips and imaging Bella writhing around in her little twin bed, rubbing her thighs together and squirming with a need for me. "But not like this, Edward. Not…like…this. I usually just wake up insanely turned on and aggravated. But this time….this time I actually came in my sleep thinking about you. I had the most delicious orgasm. It was real, it happened. I can…tell…ya know?"

_Jesus fucking Christ. _

If I wasn't already slightly aroused from the topic of conversation, by the time her words hit me, my entire face had fallen slack and my dick was pulsing. She kept talking…while I struggled to even keep a hold of the phone.

"At first, I just thought that I dreamed about having an orgasm, like, not _actually _having one. Then I realised how warm and tingly my legs were, and how heavy my arms felt. I was only kind of aggravated you weren't here…not climbing the walls like usual after a having a sex dream…"

Her words continued in my ear. My eyes closed, dick raging…I slowly licked the palm of my hand while she continued talking.

"This time everything was humming inside me. It actually took me a few minutes to realise that you weren't really here. I was so convinced I was still in New York, in our bed there, and that we had just made love. It was so sweet and I _felt_ you inside me, I swear I did…"

I shimmied my jeans down, thankful I hadn't bothered with boxers in my prior haste.

"In my dream we were curled up on the blanket in the soccer field. We had taken out from the diner–fries and ketchup left, laying on our stomaches eating and laughing. Afterward I curled up next to you and you were so warm it seeped through my clothes and into me somewhere I could never pinpoint. It flooded me. You were stroking my hair, and the backs of arms, and my back, slowly. But I know you, Edward." She laughed, although it was just a breathy whisper. "I know you so well. I felt the shift in you as you caressed, in the way your touches stayed longer, moved lower, the way your fingertips started digging into my skin. Your breathing picking up and the look in your eyes went from soft to something a little more hungry. Although, to be honest, every time I look at you when you are looking at me, your eyes might have a heat in them, but there's something around the edges that is as soft as a feather. I love your eyes when they see me. And they looked that way in my dream. Gentle mixed with needy. But your face was twisted up in some form of agony as you fought your own pitiful restraint. I couldn't imagine why you wanted to hold back…there was no one around. So I didn't let you. I took charge and we made love with the air and the sun and the grass and you felt so real and amazing inside me and my insides were honey and..."

Slow strokes. My breathing picked up. I listened carefully to her beautiful, gentle voice in my ear.

"That was when it hit me, Edward. That the burn in my stomach was a blanket of warmth, and not an angry, snarling, burn. The quiver in my thighs was tapering off, not picking up as I thought about my dream. I realised my breathing was slow and steady by that point, it wasn't frantic. I was recalling the dream pleasantly and not reaching over to scrounge through my drawer of inadequate substitutions for you…"

Fuck. _Are you kidding me with this shit right now, Bella?_

My eyes rolled back into my skull. My jaw was hanging by a thin, thin thread as her bold words marched onward.

"I was so curious, Edward. I couldn't help but check myself. Considering its like a million degrees here at night these days, I was only wearing a pair underwear anyways. So I slipped my fingers inside them. And Edward…I was _so _wet…"

Holy mother fucking shit… I actually growled into the phone as it trembled in my palm. It almost fell to the bed if it wasn't for my quick shoulder reflexes. I didn't want to miss a single word coming out of her dirty, delicious, little mouth. My hips were pressing forward involuntarily, greedily trying to take more from my hand as I squeezed and pumped, imagining the scene in the soccer field as Bella had described it.

"I was too wet, Edward," she continued in a small, but sexy voice. It was everything Bella always was. A quiet confidence. "The wetness coated my fingers and when I slipped them inside, and pressed the heel of my hand down onto myself, my body flinched away from the touch. I had already come and it was incredible, I wasn't ready for another one yet…"

My toes curled back and feet were beginning to shuffle against one another, missing the feeling of Bella's legs tangled up with mine. The hot coil was tightening in my belly and I wasn't even trying to hide the noises I was making into the phone. I was pretty sure she knew what she was doing anyway. It was why she called.

"So, I just lay there, staring, thinking, and slowly…very slowly…circling myself with my fingers. I couldn't believe how wet I was. I've never felt myself like that before. Dripping wet from just the thought of you. I guess by the time I reach that point it's usually your fingers inside me…"

_F__ucking…__hell__…_

"I couldn't stop working in the moisture though, even if I flinched and cringed away from my own touch, I forced it on myself. I wanted more even if my body didn't. My heart did. I wanted you. I wanted you so badly.

"That's when I started phoning. But you didn't answer. So, I closed my eyes and tried to pretend it _was _you. That as I pushed my fingers deep inside myself, it was your fingers, curling and reaching places inside me that only you can ever reach because I certainly couldn't–places that aren't meant for me, they're just for you…"

"Bella," I growled under my breath into my cell which was now smashed between my ear and the pillow because I needed my other hand to fist the bed sheets next to me as my entire body was pulled tight. I was about tip over the edge and every word she spoke brought me one step closer. Visions of a naked and desperate Bella squirming under her own touch, sweaty, danced behind my squeezed eyelids. Her body tangled in the sheets as she worked herself over, imaging it was me. Wanting it to be me.

"I couldn't convince myself it was you," she whispered, her voice sounded choppy and heavy with emotion. "My fingers didn't touch the right spots, my other hand squeezing my breast wasn't right... I pinched and teased and it just wasn't you. Still, I'd driven myself to brink again. My thighs were shaking against my hand and I was panting into the empty bedroom. I bit my lip so hard I could taste blood."

She was panting into the phone just as urgently as I was as she spoke. I was moments from coming and that was when I realised…if she was panting like that as well... What the fuck was _she _doing on the other end of the phone?

"Bella," I ground out her name again through clenched teeth. My palm tight around my dick, sliding up and down, squeezing against the swelling throb.

"Yes, Edward?" she asked, sounding innocent, as if saying her name had been a question. Perhaps it had been, but if it had, I'd already forgotten what for. All I could focus on was her breath on the other end of the phone, the images of her playing with herself, and the feel of my own hand.

I moaned into the phone.

"I wish it was me," she whispered. "Touching you right now."

I didn't even try to deny that I was laying in bed masturbating to her words. Instead I muttered a "fuck Bella" as the warmth coated me, weaved its way into every muscle and nerve ending tying me together, pulling me tight, and slowly unraveled them. It bled into my toes and my scalp. Wave after wave of heat drowned me, shoving me closer to the sweet, black hole I was about to topple into.

She whimpered into the phone, followed by several short, rapid pants. I imagined her legs spread wide open, her hand toying with herself, dipping her fingers in and out, swirling them around. I could taste her on my tongue. Her moisture, her sweat, her tears when they met my lips as I kissed her cheeks and temples feeling just as overwhelemed as her when that closely connected.

The heat reeled from the tips of my fingers and toes, up my limbs and into my belly–hot, urgent, and sharp. It shattered and exploded and released itself in waves as my orgasm ripped through me, decimating everything in its path, leaving me a whimpering, breathless mess. I shuddered against my palm as I gave myself one last, slow stroke from base to head, then threw my head back into the pillow, completely exhausted.

On the other end of the phone Bella was moaning wildly. "Oh god, Edward," she whined.

"Bella," I whispered, struggling to swim back to the surface of my consciousness so I could help her. "That will be me very soon. Two more months. Those will be my fingers inside you, my tongue on you, tasting you, pushing you over the edge. Making love to you. More than anything else, Isabella, I need to feel your legs wrapped around me, pulling on me, quietly begging me to fill you deeper. Holding your head in palms and brushing away tears with my thumbs. Because I love you, Bella. I love you so fucking much that I never know if those are your tears or mine when they pool in my hands."

She moaned, alternating between little mewls and desperate shrieks, into the phone. My name on her lips over and over as she came. If I wasn't utterly spent I would have been rock hard again. As it was, I was twitching from listening to her, imaging her bringing herself to her own release for the second…_third?..._time that night.

I smiled against the phone, listening to her breathing as it steadied out, my eyes closed, my right hand holding my sticky jeans, drifting off to sleep slowly, too tired and sated for the first time in a month to give a shit about my messy state.

"Edward?"

"Mmm?"

"Come home. Just for a weekend. I know you really can't afford to miss any time from your dissertation right now, but, fly into Seattle. You can see the house then and... I just need a few days with you. I can't wait until June. Edward..._please_?" Her tone was desperate, sad, needy, and heartbreaking.

"Okay," I whispered, my eyes still closed. I would fly to the end of the fucking Earth for that woman. Nothing else came first. All she had to do was ask...if that.

"Go back to sleep, Edward. I love you."

My eyes pricked underneath their lids at her soft, tender words as they wrapped themselves around me. I could hear the huge smile in voice.

"Oh, Bella," I answered her back in a broken whisper. "I love you, too. Sweet dreams, baby."

She hung up then. I think I did, I was too tired to remember. I may have just fallen asleep on the other end of an exhausted conversation, letting my minutes rack up as I slept in a very awkward position with thoughts of Bella dancing across the back of my eyelids. Her bold words and breathy moans echoed in my ear.

In the morning, I would book a plane ticket to Seattle.

* * *

Next stop: SEATTLE

I wonder what will happen...

LOVE ME THROUGH IT, please?

Air

~xox~


	43. Reunited

I'm sorry. I'll just lead with that, mmmkay?

The delay was due to a couple of things, the first being RL work, children, and responsibilities...boring, boring let's move on.

Next it's because, well, IDK...this chapter is so short and doesn't conform to the template I inadvertently type every single chapter in. So I sat on it waiting for inspiration to hit and _fix _it.

But today I re-read it and bawled my fucking eyes out. Yes. I said fucking in an author's note...that's how serious I am ;)

So...IDK, it still feels short and nonconforming but...here it is.

I hope it hits you as hard as it hits me. I say this with love for you and for these characters who may as well be my children I love them so freaking much.

Enjoy!

xox

* * *

I forwarded the entire stack of documents via email to my father over the weekend. He had our lawyers look at them, amend a few things, finally, approve them, and send them back to me. Ryan was given the amendments. The documents were meticulously redrafted and sent back to me. I cross-referenced them with the copies of the email my father sent me and then verified them officially. It was exhausting. Thank fuck we only planned to do this once. Orchestrating a mortgage for two relatively unemployed twenty-something's with prospective but technically non-existent high-paying employment, when the parties existed on opposite sides of the country…was grueling.

First thing the following Friday morning everything had been signed with Ryan as our witness. So _why _the fuck three hours later were we still sitting in the stifling, re-circulated air penthouse office suite on the tenth floor of the Melbourne Tower in downtown Seattle? The walls were a deep sage green, covered with framed awards of various kinds, the floors were a rich mahogany hardwood covered with expensive-looking Persian rugs and we sat on a plush cream-coloured sofa holding hands and nodding like good little clients while Ryan droned on and on about various points of concern and highlights he wished to illustrate. All the while in my head on repeat was a steady, silent plea for him to shut the fuck up, congratulate us, and hand us our keys so we could get the hell out of there. The day promised bigger and better things than the view of the Market from the pretentious real-estate teams' office.

An hour later, the elevator pinged and finally closed, shutting us off from the hours spent in the confining office and releasing us into the wild again together. We both took a slow, deep breath as the elevator hummed downward toward the lobby floor, releasing the air slowly, puffing out our cheeks, our heads both a swarm of information. We were pressed against opposite sides of the lift with our eyes glossed over, staring without actually seeing anything at the tile pattern on the floor.

"Uhm… We have a mortgage now. Like, a _really _big one," Bella whispered in a shrill voice that was much higher than natural as her throat constricted with both anxiety and excitement.

"I know!" I laughed nervously and jammed one hand into my jeans pocket while the other drummed against my thigh just for something to do.

"And…neither one of us are technically employed," she added jokingly with widened, horrified eyes. "Could pose a problem."

We laughed together as the doors opened and hand-in-hand we clicked our shoes against the high-gloss marble lobby floors. We exited into the beautiful, crisp summer day and the bustling streets that mirrored the bustling thoughts drumming on silently inside both of our minds. The air and the sun and the noise around us all screamed both west coast and _home _to me. I knew Bella felt the same_._ And from that moment on, _home_ was going to have a different meaning than it ever had before for both of us. It no longer meant Forks. It definitely didn't mean anything outside of Washington. It didn't mean our parents' house, the places that we grew up and still referenced as "home" whenever we were at school and spoke of "going home for a few days". It was going to mean something so much more. Something solid and tangible. Something that was purely me and Bella and nobody else. Our home. Our life. Our beginning.

Bella finalized all her book contracts late that spring. I had a letter from the Seattle Children's Hospital confirming my future employment as part of their on-site medical psychology team, beginning in the fall, complete with projected salary earnings. Together, though technically unemployed, our projected income was going to be more than sufficient to become home-owners. Tricky, but that was what we paid Ryan for. My student loans would be paid off in no time, and we were going to begin our life at 10302 North East Country Club Road in the Port Blakely district of Bainbridge Island, Washington.

The island held a special sentiment for us. It was the little place we stopped to have a picnic lunch on our way to The Woodmark years prior. While we ate on the beach overlooking the Sound with the sun nearly blinding us in a delicious sort of way as it reflected off the water, we discussed how beautiful and quaint the tiny island was, given that we circled it twice before deciding on a place to stop and eat. The island was a domestic dream. Small, with a real sense of community, schools and parks all within walking distance from any of the residential nooks along the beatifically crafted streets complete with lampposts and an old-fashioned feel. It was listed at one of the top five places in the world to live and it was easy once you set foot on the tiny island to appreciate why. We saw all the island had to offer and thought it was gorgeous. It hadn't been the right time in our lives to discuss it any further, we were still drowning in school and distance and a secrecy that seemed heavier than gravity itself, overwhelming us. But we both knew what we were thinking as we sat and ate the sandwiches my mother packed for us. I remember grimacing as always when I unwrapped Bella's peanut butter and pickle. It was a different time. And while time itself felt as if it dragged, it actually didn't. And now…here we were.

The home backed onto the Sound and had a gorgeous view of the water and the Seattle skyline on the other side. A long, illuminated cobblestone driveway twisted its way to the house and the lawn hugged it from all sides, stretching out forever with endless opportunities for landscaping and children's play equipment in the future. The exterior was a deep slate grey with a matching stone façade and a dual door garage that ran in an L-shape off the front of the house, wrapping around the top of the driveway.

I was a little ahead of myself, but as we pulled up with the keys in our hands, I couldn't help the visions of future, friendly basketball games that would take place there. Mounting a backboard against the pristine siding would be one of the first things I planned on doing. I would enjoy every minute it took me to drill irrevocably into the wood above the garage doors, marring it forever. I doubted it was what the architect had in mind when he planned the elegant home, but it would only be the first of many signs of life we would give the house over the years, making it ours.

There was an old basketball hoop attached to the side of the garage at my parents' house. It had been reinstalled several times once Emmett became tall enough to practice slam dunking the ball over my poor sports-inept head every time he challenged me to a game. I looked forward to continuing the tradition even if it meant a lifetime of embarrassment every time he kicked my ass.

The front porch wrapped around the side of the house and two large stone pillars held up the doorframe. The inside was over five thousand square feet with four large bedrooms and enough bathrooms that no matter how many children we filled the walls with, we were sure to avoid that particular argument every morning. The hardwood floors and soaring ceilings, French doors leading into every room, the stainless steel appliances, and the exquisite sweeping staircase somehow managed to work together with the large stone fireplaces in the living rooms and master bedroom to make the elegant house feel warm and not cool, inviting and not overly stuffy despite the formal details.

The kitchen was a dream and I had more than one impure thought of ways Bella and I could entertain ourselves against the marble countertops. The walls were a mix of luxurious yellows and creams with white glossy woodwork. The master bedroom overlooked the backyard and sundeck, while down the hall, two bedrooms bookended a shared bathroom, even though another bathroom was just down the hall. They reminded me immediately of the bedrooms Alice and I occupied as children, and the bathroom we shared. Memories waiting to be made for children who didn't exist yet but weren't that far away.

"Bella," I breathed so quietly to myself I wasn't even sure if she heard me or not as we stood in the foyer and looked around at the expansive elegance that was our new family's home.

"Is it overkill?" she responded to my plethora of unspoken thoughts that I somehow infused into that one word. Both our eyes swept the rooms we could see from where we stood glued to our spot.

"Yes," I broke out into a robust laugh, holding my sides. It was in fact, ridiculously overkill. The point was just that neither of us cared.

She turned on her heel and gave me a half apologetic half amused face. "I know, Edward. But I didn't want to wait any more. We could have moved into an apartment downtown, and then a smaller place in Kirkland or something after that, and then eventually, when our kids are in school, found a place that was big enough for all of us but…" her words trailed off quietly as her thoughts ran away inside her pretty little head. I was already one step ahead of her, and as always, I knew what she meant.

"… but I want to make this _ours_ and never move again. I want to be in _our __family__'__s __home _right now. Lord knows we've earned it," I finished her thoughts for her.

"Exactly."

We both took deep breaths and started touring the house, silently leading each other by the hand from room to room. It felt different than it had the day before, and probably the many times before that when Bella visited the house without me. This time, it belonged to us. Our laughter was going to fill it, our pictures were going to cover the walls, the kitchen was going to be filled with Bella's amazing cooking, and the sheets in the master bedroom upstairs were going to smell of coconut and sugar. Our feet were going to scuff the immaculate flooring and one day our children's sticky little hands would rub the corners of the staircase knoll post raw and muck up the beautiful paint on the walls. The inside of the bedroom closets at the far end of the house were going to have pencil marks ticking off a child's height, and the closet off the front room would be filled with all things Parker Brothers and Hasbro. There would be no pretentious Persian carpets, or look-but-don't-touch furniture. Instead, there would be stuffed animals trailed everywhere, cabinets of toys, and bookshelves with books no one happily had the time to read. The backyard would be filled with Little Tykes slides and playhouses and I would get my brother to help me build a sandbox in the corner by the deck and the dogwood tree.

There was a nook upstairs nestled against a corner window above the stairwell that overlooked the front yard and the lower level of the house. It was going to be the perfect place for a low bookshelf filled with tattered, loved paperbacks, and a place for Bella to read and write until her heart was content, all the while never feeling secluded from the rest of our home and our family in an actual, enclosed office. She could look down over the pony wall and see the entire main floor and through the front windows into the driveway and yard. Everything about the house was going to be comfortable, lived-in, relaxed, and perfect. It was going to be me and Bella.

"Wanna order pizza," Bella asked with a huge grin, legs swinging in the air as she sat on the corner of the island countertop in the kitchen.

"You read my mind." I couldn't help smiling back at her in answer.

"Do we even know a number for a local pizza place?" she asked, chewing on her lower lip and puzzling her brows.

"_Is_there even a local pizza place here, I don't remember seeing one?"

"Shit. We're not in the city anymore," she whispered nervously and looked down at her swinging feet.

I closed in on her and nestled myself between her legs. My palms cupped her cheeks and I gently lifted her head to meet her eyes. I lowered my mouth to hers but once our lips met I didn't kiss her right away. I just wanted to feel her against me.

"Thank God for that, Isabella."

I felt her smile against my lips. And _then_ I kissed her.

It turned out there was a local pizza place just up the road from us. It wasn't a chain restaurant and somehow we both like that. When the pizza came Bella saved the coupon flyer that was stuck to the top of the box, and threw it into a drawer in the kitchen, closing the drawer with a firm nod and a proud smile.

We took the pizza box and a six pack of soda out through the French doors leading onto the back deck. The night was warm, the promise of a lovely summer lingering in the air, and the sky seemed to stretch on forever, black and speckled with flecks of diamonds. We both knew it was only a matter of time before there was furniture everywhere indoors and out, but for the moment, there was nothing but us. We walked down the three small steps until our bare feet touched grass and we sat on the step side-by-side with the pizza box behind us on the top step. The sky was inky perfection, unmarred by any city lights. The Sound lapped at the dock below our property and the city twinkled from the perfect distance away. I reached inside the pizza box to dole out a piece to either of us. We ate in a comfortable silence, allowing our swarming minds to breathe a little as the peaceful night slowly worked its way into our bodies and minds, unwinding us. Or, rather…

I had never been more relaxed. I had never been more on-edge. I had never been more happy. I had never been more antsy.

For every emotion I felt another one counterweighted it at the opposite end of the spectrum just as strongly. I couldn't eat more than one piece of pizza before my stomach threatened to riot on me, tied in knots and flip-flopping all over the place. I shoved the pizza box away and waited for Bella to finish eating. She didn't seem to notice that I was no longer as relaxed as I was when we first sat down. I swear to god she had never chewed so slow in all her life. My heart accelerated faster the longer we sat there in silence. It felt like it was killing me. Finally, unable to quiet my bustling impatience any longer, I took a deep breath and blew it out, steeling my stupid unnecessary nerves.

"Bella?"

"Hmm?" She didn't look at me. Her eyes were huge and they were on the sky and the stars and the Sound and the city across the water that held my brother and his wife and his children and the road to our parents and my sister and everything we had ever known. She was slowly chewing while a droopy piece of pizza hung in her hand. It was almost comical had I not been about to spontaneously combust. Did she not hear the strain in my wavering voice?

I swallowed and it took more effort than I had expended over the previous eight years in all of my university studies with my throat closed tight. I tried again.

"Bella?"

This time her head tilted in my direction and then a second later she broke her gaze from the stars and redirected it to me. Mercifully. I smiled at her and it wasn't forced. It was the most natural thing I had ever done. Loving Isabella. Living my life with her. Belonging to her wholeheartedly. My nerves lessened just a little as I took a moment to collect my thoughts, my mind cleared just by looking at her and her soft smile back at me.

When Charlie first proposed to Renee they were barely out of high school. Apparently, the old man just knew what he wanted even back then. Thinking back on it, I supposed it made sense that he had grown weary of me over the years as they ticked by and I failed to act on my love for his daughter. Charlie had a wonderful, sorrowful appreciation of time.

In the early days of their life together, Charlie worked at the local gas station training at night to join the police force in the small town, a town he was born in. The ring he originally gave to his love was small, a tiny token of the great love he had for her. He always wished he could have given her more. Never one for romance, even then Charlie swallowed his own discomfort as he asked Rene to be his wife and professed to his love that he would have strapped a star to a loop of gold and presented it to her if he could have.

Ten years later, she was sick. His heart was breaking. His life was tail-spinning and the future he thought he had was disintegrating right before his eyes and there wasn't a damn thing the man, a man who prided himself on his authority, could do about it. Regrets were piled high behind him even though his family would be the first to tell him he shouldn't have any at all. One of them he was determined to fix before…well…he could fix it.

On their ten year anniversary, Charlie took his wife to a nice restaurant in Port Angeles where he gave her a gift. It had a little gold bow on the top and fit in the palm of his hand as he offered it to her. It was a little black box with plush velvet both on the outside and on the inside cushion. Renee gasped and clapped her weak hand over her mouth and Charlie rubbed his sweaty palms on the table cloth before handing it over to her. He wasn't sure what she was going to think of the _gift._Renee and Charlie lived simple lives, in a simple house, with modest careers, and they did so very contentedly. They started out quite young and had always worked hard for anything they ever needed or wanted. Their only child was the centre of their universe.

Renee, hand clasped over her mouth gingerly, scarf tied around her head beautifully, frail little hand over Charlie's large paw where it held the box atop the table in Port Angeles, she cried before she even took the box into her own hands. He cried. Minutes passed and a million thoughts were shared. Eyes connected and conversations of regret and loss were silently had. Dreams slipped away and all they had was every minute they were living in together and the ticking on the clock was almost so loud it was deafening because every minute was something to cherish.

And then she opened it.

The box was empty.

Charlie gulped loudly, hoping the romantic advice he was following given to him by my mother wasn't a mistake as he read the confusion that weighed clearly in his love's tired eyes. She wasn't saying anything so he figured he should cough up an explanation.

"I just…Well, I always wanted more for you, Renee." He choked on the words because he hadn't meant them to, but they held so much more meaning than what he intended. "More than what we have, more than what I gave you." He rubbed his thumb over the tiny chip on the gold band that rest upon his wife's finger. It spun around easily, much larger on her than it once had been. "But hell if I know what to pick. I want your wedding ring to be everything you ever dreamed it to be. So, I want you to design it yourself and I'll have it made. Just for you. From…me." He nodded as he finished speaking, eyes bouncing from his thumb tracing the ring on Renee's finger to her eyes which were now brimming with tears. The energy it took to hold them back was overwhelming in her weakened state and so she gave up and let them flow freely.

Renee adored the idea. She adored the man who offered it to her. She studied ring brochures every night after dinner, curled up in her rocking chair in the living room beside the fire even though it was the middle of summer, a blanket over her legs and a daughter curled atop the blanket as they oohed and awed over each page. Together, they sketched ring after ring every night until they had it perfect. Together they made memories more than jewellery. It was made on a rush order. No one said aloud why. And when it was brought home for the first time Renee refused to put it on until her daughter came home from school to see it get slipped onto her finger for the first time, since she was just as much a part of the process as the man and woman the ring joined.

Their daughter came home that afternoon, bright-cheeked and big brown-eyed as usual. She was speechless when her father popped open the box and, in a rare display, professed his heart to his wife in front of his daughter. Then, when he went to place the ring on her finger, Renee stopped him. Confused, Charlie stood. Renee took the ring from its place against the black velvet cushion and called Bella closer with a hoarse voice. She turned the ring over and, much to her husband and her daughter's surprise, showed them a part of the ring no one had known would exist except for Renee. At the bottom of the ring, on the outside of the band, lay a row of seven deep blue Sapphires set into the band, one for every year Bella had lived thus far.

Renee sat on the edge of the rocking chair and Bella drew closer. "See these stones, Bella. These are Sapphires, you know what that is, right?" Bella nodded, she knew they were her birthstone. "You are the most precious thing that has ever happened to me, Isabella. To your father as well. Your smile brightens my entire world, your laugh fills my very soul with joy, and your eyes paint pictures that I feel blessed to have ever seen. You will unite me and your father forever, no matter what. I want you to always remember that and always be near me, even when you aren't."

There were a lot of tears that day as well.

Balanced in the centre of my open palm, I held the very same little black velvet box. To my own surprise, my hand didn't tremble even slightly as I pulled the ring from it. I knew it would be exactly what she wanted. Anything other than this ring in my fingers in this moment would be a disappointment, a betrayal, a little less special. I would never do that to her.

The ornate twisting of diamonds, so carefully constructed many years before by a mother and daughter, gleamed even with nothing but starlight to guide it. The the tip of my finger felt the rough row of Sapphires on the underneath side of the ring as I held it and slipped down to the grass below Bella and on to one knee. Perhaps an unnecessary formality, but it felt right.

Her face was the most beautiful blank thing I had even laid eyes on as her lips parted but did nothing more and her eyes took frenzied survey of what was happening.

"You…" My throat tightened but I didn't look away, I couldn't. She was everything I had always wanted and everything I always had, sitting right in front of me. I would never look away. "You are the most precious thing that has ever happened to me, Isabella," I began, reciting the words as had read them quoted a hundred times before in Renee's journals to her daughter, my voice steady and sure, but low and laden with more emotion than one man was ever meant to contain. "Your smile brightens my entire world, your laugh fills my soul with joy, and your eyes paint pictures that I feel blessed to have ever seen." I paused for a moment, licked my lips as I thought before I merged from Renee's words and into my own. "I have loved you with everything I have since the day you were born. I helped you up every time you scraped your knees, I killed spiders in your bedroom for you, and held you in my arms any time you needed it. And I guess, later on, times when you just _wanted _it." I paused to arch a cheeky eyebrow at her. She cracked a smile and the movement caused tears to pour down her cheeks. "I've been there every time you needed me. Even though, I swear to God that for every time you've needed me, Bella, I've needed you a hundred times over. But never…never for anything I could ever put into words that would make any kind of sense. I just…_need_ you.

"And I loved you all the times I fell against a pillar inside an airport terminal and cried like a sissy feeling broken and detached from my life line. Every time my heart broke being pulled away from you, knowing that yours felt the same. I can't even breathe right when you aren't near me. Everything that I am is connected to you somehow. And, it's _so _goddamn cheesy but, Bella, I'm so excited for whatever the future holds for us. You're my best friend, and you always will be. I've never once thought I would live my life any other way, but if you'll have me, I will never leave your side again. Will you be my wife, Bella?"

_Always __a__ question._Unnecessary, but a sign of respect.

She reached out and took the ring between her fingertips and stared at it for a long time. She didn't know I had it. She couldn't have. She didn't know her father still had it. No one had ever mentioned it. I doubt she ever forgot the ring, but she assumed it had been buried with her mother just as nearly everyone else had. Only I knew because I asked my own mother years ago if Renee was in fact buried with her wedding ring on. When she replied that no, she hadn't, and a trace of a sad smile lifted the corner of her mouth, I had no doubt as to why she hadn't been. Sometimes my entire life felt preordained and yet, I would never change a single detail of it.

Bella made a few gasping, breathy sounds while staring at the ring. Unlike my steady palm when I offered it to her, her small hand shook almost violently. My heart was slow and steady, balancing hers out. I wrapped my hands around hers hoping to still them a little. I couldn't imagine the pain mixed with excitement that she was being smacked with. I always knew this moment was going to be devastatingly bittersweet.

The panting noises she was making almost sounded like the word 'how' being repeated over and over, but I wasn't sure. If she wanted me to hear her she would find a way. Until then, I was content to kneel before her and hold her hands in mine and wait.

After several minutes, I felt compelled to answer what I figured was her first thought. "I didn't figure you'd want anything…" I let my words fizzle out, shaking my head. Her eyes looked up at met mine. They burned brightly as tears poured down her cheeks, dripping from her chin and landing on my wrists as they continued to cradle her hands inside my own on top of her lap. I used the heel of one hand to gently brush the streaks from her face while she continued to blink and chase her own thoughts_._I knew she battled a little inside herself both the feeling that the ring was not hers, all the while longing to put it on her finger and be near it once again. "It belongs to you," I whispered quietly, nodding at her. "Trust me." And I knew she did.

She handed me back the ring and nodded through tears. Her teeth dug into her lower lip around what was almost a smile. Her eyes looked past me into the black night and the sparkling stars. She licked her lips, sniffed, and looked back to me. In her eyes I read a hundred thousand thoughts. Every single one of them centered around love.

Gently, I brought her left hand from her lap and held it in mine. The ring slipped on her finger where it fit perfectly. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and held tight, burying her face and crying into my shoulder. I wrapped my other arm around her and slid my hand up her back to cradle her head against me.

"I love you," she whispered and I felt her fingernails dig into my shirt, clenching the fabric as she held tighter.

I imagined the moment more times than I could count. I rehearsed the things I wanted to say, I thought about the way it would feel–liberating and exhilarating. But in reality, my heart was heavy for the woman who would soon be my wife. I knew her pain as if it were my own. I appreciated the depth of the moment. It wasn't as simple as some couple's had it. But that was life. And we proved every day since childhood that together we could withstand life. That love never fails.

"So…is this a 'yes'?" I asked chuckling lightly, a million years of anxiety coming out in shaky laughter and watery eyes.

She pulled back, smiling the smile that melted my heart and soothed my soul. She was my entire life, sitting there wiping tears of pain and joy off her cheeks and nodding frantically.

"Yes, of course, you idiot, yes." She shoved me gently in the shoulder and I reached out to steady myself with the edge of the white wooden railing that framed the porch steps. I was immediately grateful I had because a moment later she squealed and hurtled herself at me harder. My fingers slipped and we were on our backs in the grass beneath the sky giggling and wiping each others tears. She wrapped her every limb around my neck and waist until we were as intertwined as two human beings could ever be. Forever.

* * *

Please tell me I'm not alone in how emotional this chapter is, right?

Now that we're past _all of this _the block in my brain should be gone. Here's hoping.

Love me!

Air

xox


	44. In the Stars

Well...I know...It's a long slow torture I'm providing here. I'm sorry. RL, ya know?

We're wrapping things up. It's happening. Someone start a support group, I'll need one more than anyone.

This chapter brings the time circle to a complete close.

OMG DONT GO REREAD THE PROLOGUE OKAY

Well fine...if you must, but...understand that somewhere after chapter two this story took on a new life. One of it's own. One I had to surrender any control over. The continuity is shoddy at best. Go with it, okay?

I mean... ONE SHOT...? Guh.

I'm super emotional right now. This isn't the last chapter make me stop blubbering we still have two more.

Thank you, to everyone who reads, pimps, reviews, discusses, tweets, facebooks, PMs, and...loves. Love is a tale worth telling. And I love you all.

Be brave. Enjoy.

XOX

* * *

It wasn't that we didn't appreciate the house. O_ur house_ was amazing. Pure architecture artistry. A perfect blend of ancient fairy tale meets modern-day fantasy. But something felt right about the moment we shared in the grass under the stars after Bella agreed to be my wife…so we went with it. Over the past decade we had learned nothing if not to go with whatever felt right when it came to one another. Simple. True. Like laying in the grass together.

"Hang on a second." Bella's words sprang up energetically from beside me after a long time spent in blissful silence. She beamed as she shoved herself off me and got to her feet. I laced my hands under my head and smiled back, a subtle nod to let her know that I would always "hang on" much longer than that.

I watched her bound up the porch steps, propelling herself forward with her hand on the banister. She paused at the glass doors to brush grass from the bottoms of her feet before fading into the golden light of the kitchen. I turned my attention to the sky as I waited for her return. It was black and intoxicating. The stars blinked down brightly at me and my eyes glazed over, allowing the pinpricks to smear together against the dark and engulf my vision. I had never, ever in my life, been more at peace than I was in that moment. The smile on my face wasn't broad, it didn't stretch from ear to ear. It just simply…_was. _It was there, it was slight, it was content. It felt permanent. The idea of cementing my status with Bella–having bands of declaration around our fingers, announcing to the world that we were tied forever to the one person who brought balance into our existence–that made my insides fucking giddy.

I heard the front door bang shut for the second time and lifted my head, attempting in vain to stare through the walls of the kitchen to the front of the house to see what Bella was doing. It was futile; I gave up and returned to studying the stars. She would come out when she was ready. In the meantime, I was certain the night sky burned brighter and appeared more majestic than it ever had before.

Moments later, she returned with the heavy wool blanket that was always stored in the trunk of the Volvo draped over her arm, still smiling. We lay the blanket out on the grass and snuggled in close to pull it tight over us, burritoed inside its warmth. We spent our first night at our new house cuddled together in the grass underneath the stars exactly like that.

The blanket had seen us through many moments in the past. Thrown around our shoulders on the cold bleachers watching my brother's football games, high school bonfires, and late-night pep rallies. On the hood of my car every Christmas while we drank hot chocolate outside the Port Angeles "Street of Dreams" and Bella collected donations in her little tin box. Laid across the sand for New Year's Eve picnics destined to end in a shower of tears as we faced another impending separation. We cheered with that blanket, wept with that blanket, and made love on that blanket. We made a life on that blanket. And now we lay, wrapped around each other in silence as the crickets sounded and the water lapped at the dock and welcomed the first night of many great ones in our new home, as a family.

"How long have you known?" she asked quietly. Her head rest in the dip of my shoulder and our fingers played with one another's suspended in the air–intertwining, twirling, teasing. I didn't have to ask her to clarify; I knew exactly what she meant.

"Years." Was my simple answer.

"Really? But how?"

"I asked my mother."

"Oh. Did my mom do it on purpose, do you think?"

"I don't know. I mean, yes, she left the ring for you. Whether or not she left it for _me _to give to you, who knows?" The idea made the small, comfortable smile on my face widen a little as I envisioned Renée.

"Makes you wonder," Bella whispered. Despite the dark I could tell her thoughts and eyes were gently glazing over, drifting.

"It does."

I recalled the many times in high school when friends gave us curious glances as we wandered late into class together. Or Rosalie's penetrating eyes that I was certain had never been fooled for a moment. The jackass remarks I recently learned my brother made intentionally to goad me. My mother's instincts were unparalleled. Renee requested that Charlie hold on to her wedding ring. It was quite possible it had all been in the stars for much longer than I was conscious of. _In the stars._

I blinked slowly as a comfortable silence lowered itself over us for a few minutes, until, "I think she's happy." Her voice was small but I would always hear her.

My fingertips moved down the length of her fingers until mine could slide easily slide between each of hers. "I know she is, Bella."

"Hmm…" she hummed thoughtfully.

I rolled to hover carefully over her, balanced on my elbows, the blanket still draped across my back. I blinked down at her in the quiet while thoughts and emotions moved between us without a sound, before slowly dragging my nose along her neck, jaw, and ear–perfectly placed kisses punctuated the words I wasn't saying but she heardnonetheless. Clothing was shed slowly and reverently. My fingers found hers again above her head and gripped as I planted our hands firmly into the ground for leverage. If the pressure was uncomfortable on her delicate wrists she didn't let on. Every other touch was careful, gentle, slow. Balanced. Her thighs fit perfectly against my hips and her body tucked neatly into mine as I moved inside her. My lips brushed over hers with each pass. Touching, not kissing. Breathing into one another. Intimacy. Our movements were precise; each thrust was important. Emotions welled and poured over. The build of climax wasn't the only fulfillment. I wasn't trying to reach an end. I cherished _this. _And when it was over, I held her tight enough that once my arms were no longer around her, she would still feel their promise.

A noise that was half humming and half purring came from just below my chin as fingers trailed their way up the centre of my chest and then back down. Her hand snaked across my ribs to hug me. "I can't believe you have to leave again," she groaned. "How are we not over this, yet?" It didn't escape my notice that her arms squeezed my torso tighter as if she could physically hold me back. Well…she absolutely could. _Except, _I was three weeks away from defending my dissertation in a huge fucking lecture hall in front of my opponent, the evaluation committee, the chairman of the public defence, and my principal adviser. Not to mention most of my former instructors and colleagues, some students, and the judging committee. I had a meeting to turn in my work the following afternoon. I didn't want to tear myself away from the comfort of Isabella's arms, the scratchy wool blanket against our bare flesh, the Washington air, and our new home any more than she wanted to see me walk away, but by the end of the following month I would be packing up my shit from the rat hole apartment that had been my sorry little home-away-from-home for the last nine years and returning to Washington indefinitely.

I smoothed my palms against both sides of her body that was straddled above mine, my fingers meeting at the middle of her back, over her hips where I kneaded the flesh. "I know, but I'll be back before either of us knows it." _Lies._ "And then that'll be it. I'm all yours." I arched an eyebrow dramatically in a failed attempt to lighten her spirits.

She scoffed and then sniffled. Her fingers slipped away from mine as she wiped her cheeks roughly and when they returned they were wet. "_Before I know it_," she repeated scathingly.

"Well…" I left it at that. What more could I say? She was right. We both already felt the tear between us and we were still wrapped around each other's naked bodies. But I had to get up and get dressed if I had any hope of catching my flight.

I lay there for another forty minutes anyway.

Lay there. Made love to my _fiancé_ one last time. Semantics.

Then, I truly had to haul balls because I was already pushing it to leave New York at such a crucial time in my studies, but I needed to meet with the attorneys alongside Bella for the house to finalize properly. However, missing my return flight would be detrimental. The visit to Washington was as short as I could feasibly make it within the flight timetables. I didn't have a chance to see most of my family members over the thirty-eight hour period before I was literally sprinting through the airport to the security line after throwing a wad of cash at the cab driver and running from the car without properly closing the door behind me.

Once I reached security, panting and sweating, I fervently begged and bribed the lady at the front of the line to allow me to cut in front of her. The line bled back and forth zigzagging along the black temporary barricades all the way down the long hall. If I waited in that shit I would definitely miss my flight. If I missed my flight I would miss my 4PM advisors meeting. The final one. The one where I handed in everything I worked so hard on over the last decade of my life. Everything that not only I_, _but Bella as well, sacrificed for. Everything our lives had been put on hold for. I wasn't missing that fucking meeting. My nostrils flared as I fought to catch my breath and beseeched the woman in front of me with my most convincing look. Sweat trickled down my spine and my bag kept slipping off my shoulder.

She stared back at me as if I had asked her to skin a kitten or some shit. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a security guard take note of our exchange and begin to approach us. I had approximately fifteen seconds before he would be all up in my shit and ruin everything.

"I just waited for nearly two hours in that line, young man," the elderly lady shouted at me. Several of the people around us scoffed and snorted loudly in concurrence. "Why exactly should I allow you to bypass it and waltz in front of me? Because you're young and irresponsible? Because you have poor time management skills? Because your generation is filled with a blind sense of entitlement?" She crossed her arms over her chest and several indignant eyes were on me and the security guard was three strides away from grabbing me by my shoulder and throwing me into the back of the line where I would miss my flight and my meeting.

I huffed loudly and looked pathetic and then words flew from my mouth in desperation using every molecule of oxygen in my straining lungs. "Because I had exactly one day I could afford to miss from my doctorial dissertation which I hand in _this afternoon _in New York to come home and ask my girlfriend who has been my best friend literally since the minute she was born to be my wife and give her her dead mother's wedding ring _while _signing the papers for the house we just purchased together. Did I mention I'm going to officially be a doctor sometime in the next few weeks and save lives?" _Sort of. _ But the emphasis worked well in my favour to discredit her "irresponsible" theory.

I was out of breath and my words smashed into one another by the time I finished but I made my point effectively while still panting in front of her. The elderly woman uncrossed her arms from her chest and returned her palm to just over her heart and gasped. I recognised the gesture as something my mother often did when she was incredibly touched. The people who had been glaring at me were now eyeing me with a mixture of scepticism and marvel.

"Is there a problem here?" The security guard's voice was low and authoritative behind me. My eyes widened in silent plea.

"Absolutely not," the woman scoffed as if offended by the guard's intrusion, "I was just giving my grandson hell for taking so long looking through the shops that he damn near made us miss our flight!" She shoved me brusquely by my shoulders toward the open security table. I smiled widely at her. A guy behind her shook his head as if he wasn't buying my sob-story for a second but what the fuck did I care? I wasn't going to miss my flight _and _I'd had sex twice this morning and it was only seven AM.

Miraculously, I was settled into my spot after stepping over a man's knees awkwardly when he refused to acknowledge my attempts to get at the window seat. Passengers were still trickling onto the plane so I figured I had a few minutes before I had to turn my cell off. I hit speed dial one.

"Uh oh," her scratchy voice sounded through the receiver. I woke her up. "Don't tell me you missed it…no wait! Tell me you missed it." Her voice perked up.

"No, I made it. I had to beg, borrow, and steal but I'm on the plane."

Silence.

"I wish I wasn't," I offered. _Stupid words. _

"Me too."

My turn for silence.

"Hey?" she asked sleepily.

"Yeah?"

"Can I come back out in a few weeks? I wanna help pack up and say a proper goodbye to the place?"

I really liked the sound of that. _A proper goodbye. _"If you can take some time then come as soon as you can. Now go back to sleep and I'll call you when I land."

"I love you, Edward," she murmured, already half asleep.

"I love you too, baby."

I ended the call and looked down at the new picture on background, smiling affectionately until some sharp words punctured my fuzzy gaze and demanded my attention.

"You never mentioned what she said?" the woman asked with a smirk and her hand on her hip. I couldn't tell if she was grinning because she thought I was romantic or if she thought I fed her a load of shit earlier so she would let me cut in line. I chuckled to myself and flipped around the phone in my defence, ignoring the grunts of annoyance coming from the man beside me as my elbow came within an inch of his nose.

After the proposal, and after hours of lovemaking under the stars, Bella and I lay twisted together under the blankets talking slowly about things like the wedding, the house, the things we hoped to fill it with, children, names we liked and so on. Our fingers traced invisible, lazy lines along one another. At one point she grabbed her cell, hugged herself against my chest and snapped a picture. Our hair was out of control, the grey wool blanket was visible under my head and the grass just above it was in the shot. Our shoulders were clearly bare, our chests pressed together, and a blanket was just barely visible at Bella's lower back in the bottom of the picture. Her hand cupped my cheek proudly displaying her mother's ring. The flash bounced off the diamonds in exaggerated radiance. Our pale skin was overblown by the bright flash but our flushed cheeks were noticeable, as well as our cheesy grins. Bella's eyes were on the camera while mine were downcast at her.

The woman bent over the man next to me and peered closer. "Well I've never…" She shook her head and smiled at me. "Isn't that just the sweetest little picture I have ever seen? Lovely ring and even more lovely girlfriend…ah…_fiancé _you have there, 'grandson'." She winked conspiratorially at me.

"Thank you," I smiled proudly.

An agitated line was beginning to form behind the woman but I didn't dare say a word.

Just when I thought she was going to continue on to her seat she smacked her hand against the knee of the man next to me. "Up you get. Twenty-nine C, that's your new destination," she said looking down at her own boarding pass to confirm the seat number. The man began to protest before she silenced him. "You're in a suit with your computer on you knees. You're on this flight alone and you are just going to spend the whole time giving yourself permanent retinal damage so what difference does it make to you whether it's here or there? Now move it."

He slammed his laptop shut and stood, glaring daggers at the elderly woman in front of him.

"Save it, honey. I have five sons, with five wives, and twelve grandchildren, that look means diddly squat to me," she called back to him and she situated herself calmly into the seat beside me, smoothing out the tops of he pants and adjusting the collar of her shirt.

I was full-belly laughing by the time the line of passengers continued moving past us to their seats.

"I hate flying; it bores the snot out of me. I have a million and one things I need to be doing and instead of doing any of them I'm stuck sitting in an uncomfortable chair for seven hours studying the back of a stranger's skull. I figure you owe me a good story."

I spent the next three hours talking her ear off. Sure, I had my own laptop in my bag at my feet and I had been just about to pop it open when she interrupted me, but she was right, I _did _owe her. I started at the beginning and spent over two hours talking about the four-minute Ferris wheel ride in Santa Monica one summer that changed the entire path of my life. Or maybe it was only the catalyst for what was likely a predestined trajectory. The woman was much softer at heart than she appeared outwardly and was fascinated by every minute detail of my slow discovery that I was madly in love with my best friend.

I told her about the way the neon lights from the carnival below lit Bella's hair with a pink halo. How we were sharing a bag of cotton candy, our fingers fighting for pieces at the same time as the wind whipped her hair wildly around her face and her cheeks hurt from smiling so wide and my belly ached with laughter. I couldn't recall the jokes we were telling as the ride went around, all I could remember was that time seemed to have stopped. The hum of the people, the shrill alarms from the games, the squeals of laughter…they all faded away as the dark night hugged us in our isolated little bucket and something warm and unfamiliar bled through me for the very first time. My toes tingled and my chest constricted. My fingers wanted to catch the hair whipping around her cheeks and hold it in place for her. My lips were suddenly very dry and my throat parched. Words died somewhere between my brain and my tongue that felt too big for my mouth, and her laughter and happiness was the only thing I could focus on. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh. I wanted hug her. I was afraid if I did I wouldn't let go. And if I couldn't let go…_then what_?

Panic and fear flooded me just as our bucket came to an abrupt stop and the sullen kid our age popped open the door latch and mumbled some shit about enjoying our ride as he helped Bella out without ever once actually noticing her. I was frozen in my seat wondering how in the hell he could hold her hand and steady her onto the shaky metal platform and not feel the pulsing current that shot through my body every time I looked at her, never mind actually fucking touching her. Was that not normal? Was it just me? I blinked stupidly for a few more seconds until Bella's face reappeared, ducking down to make eye contact with me.

"Are you following me or what?" she giggled. And she had no fucking clue. I was slowly making plans to follow her to the ends of the Earth. As much as our friendship had grown over the years, our real journey began in that moment of adolescent confusion.

I told the woman about how I spent the next several months bouncing between panic attacks and bouts of anger. I felt betrayed somehow. As if I had this amazing best friend and now it was all fucked up and there was nothing I could do about it–it was going to be ruined one way or the other. She nodded and offered me a sad, knowing smile as I told her about the first little taste of bitter distance that Bella and I had in the months following Santa Monica. I glossed over the Christmas party we abandoned together and the night that solidified our newly defined relationship parameters.

After that I slowed down and remembered my manners. The woman shared her own love story with me. A story that was still being written as it were. She was in Seattle visiting her youngest son and his new baby. She showed me pictures. I told her about my nieces. She asked about my PhD and told me which of her sons had continued their education and which of them hadn't and how that had worked out for them in the long run.

The time passed quickly and I was grateful to her for that. If she hadn't sat down next to me I knew from experience two things would have happened. First, I'd have dragged out my laptop only to fire up my notes and stare at them blankly, frustration at not being able to focus bubbling angrily in my chest while my heart and my mind lingered elsewhere. Secondly, somewhere above Texas I would abandon any pretence of work and stow away the laptop, giving in to my fantasies about Isabella, trying to envision what she was doing at that exact moment, what she looked like, how she felt, and all the things I wished I could say and do with her instead of being on the stupid fucking plane.

By the time the flight bounced around on the JFK tarmac I thanked the woman beside me genuinely and told her it had been a pleasure. She wished me a future full of happiness. I told her she could count on that.

Two hours after landing I was shaking my advisors hands one by one as I made my way down the boardroom table, nodding enthusiastically as they congratulated me. Of course, they had three weeks to review my work, match me with an opponent, and I still had to stand before them and defend it before anything was official, but to even make it to the podium was an honour in and of itself worth congratulatory praise.

I felt free as a fucking bird, floating buoyantly along Amsterdam Avenue, having just left Shermerhorn to submit my request for a lecture hall, making my way back out onto the chaotic streets of the city toward my apartment for one of the last times. Technically, I still had quite a lot of work to do. I had to research my opponent and solidify my argument. I had to make arrangements to sell or give away two thirds of the shit in my apartment because it was disgusting and there was no way I would allow it to enter the new house. And I was sure my roommates were planning some sort of farewell fuckery celebration. After much debate, the guys decided they couldn't afford to resume my father's lease after I left and that perhaps it was time to join the real world, get their own places, and maybe even jobs. I had to meet with the landlord to settle the paperwork, hopefully securing my father's security and damage deposits despite the few bumps and bruises we gave the place over the last nine years, but first I needed to fix the gaping hole in the wall behind the front door before the man did a walk-through in a few weeks time. It was going to be hectic three weeks, but the reward in the end was going to be everything I had ever wanted.

The days ticked by.

Unfortunately, as always when I spent any amount of time alone in the city, my spirits slowly depleted. The buoyancy I experienced after finalising my PhD seeped out of me the longer I was away from Bella and my family, and in its place it left behind a bitterness that was hard to escape. Sometimes, my stupid mind had a way of locking down the darker feelings and holding on to them no matter how hard I tried to shake them.

The day my family arrived I should have been bouncing off the walls, and certainly, a part of me was. However, there was another piece of me that was still in turmoil. Maybe it was because the ache in my heart had been so all-consuming the final weeks I spent alone? Perhaps it was the way Bella strut nonchalantly down the terminal hallway joking and giggling with my family and winking at me. But more likely than anything...it was the knowledge that only she and I were privy to as she sidled up next to me along with everyone else, wrapping her arms around me and congratulating me with a coy smile on her lips as I peered down at her. The thin line of silver at her collarbone managed to gleam even in the dreary overhead fluorescent lights of the airport, highlighting the necklace she almost never removed from around her neck since the moment I gave it to her one New Years Eve night what felt like a lifetime ago.

It was funny how our lives seemed that way to me; compartmentalized. Childhood. The beginning of our new and undefined relationship, wrought with uncertainty. Followed by a solidity we painstakingly reached somewhere along the way.

Our childhood was filled with crayons melting in the sun in Bella's backyard, a rope swing at the lake, birthday parties, scraped knees, bike rides, Lego towers, and mud pies. Tragedy, and companionship, and solace; dark corners and tears.

Our teenage years carried so much frustration and yet pure perfection. Secrets that felt so important to keep. Surely, parents wouldn't understand, how could they? Had anyone in the world ever felt what we were feeling? Assuredly not. Youth is naive.

Separation burns. It was my own personal fiery hell. Torment beyond repair and if it had lasted even a moment longer I would have succumb to its depths and never again resurfaced. She saved me. We saved each other.

Still, we had secrets. Why? Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Living in the moment is confusing as hell. Disrupting the status quo can be terrifying. It felt like there was so much at stake that to risk it would have been foolish. And who knows, perhaps it would have been. I would never regret a single second of our past. How could I? Every baby step and misstep led us to our 'happily ever after'.

Adulthood. Responsibility. Commitment. Clarity.

It was time. The compartments were our past and our future was wide open and honest.

Back in the apartment, Bella followed me into the bathroom silently. I felt her behind me. All I had to do was open my heavy eyes and look in the mirror and I would have seen her reflection behind me. Instead, I inhaled deeply thru my nose, blew out a steady breath through my lips, and smiled softly as I felt her hands slide along my sides and wrap around my belly, laying her cheek against my back as she hugged me.

"You okay?" she asked in a whisper.

"How can I not be?" I opened my eyes and found hers in the mirror peaking out from behind my shoulder. She understood my sincerity.

"Just checking."

I turned around and slipped my index finger under the chain around her neck, pulling the necklace from under her tee shirt to lie openly against her chest. The ring hung beautifully next to the locket. I stared at it for a long time.

"Can I put it on now?" she asked in a quiet voice, her eyes downcast on my thumb and forefinger as I held the band in between us.

"Tonight. I made us dinner reservations. We can have a little 'coming out' party," I joked.

She simply smiled. I was overcome with emotion. Not soon enough, I would be referring to her as my wife.

_Oh, my wife loves that restaurant... I have to get home, my wife is waiting for me... This is a gift for my wife…_

Bella stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to mine. I'm pretty sure she meant to give me a simple kiss before returning to the small living room not fifteen feet from where we stood, but it had been a long several weeks and an emotional morning. I quickly deepened the kiss. She let me. I dropped my hands and gripped her hips with a purpose. I felt her hesitation for a brief moment as her lips paused over mine before she quickly conceded and her fingers twisted into my hair; a silent permission.

Unfortunately, we were too loud to go undetected and I was left even more emotionally unstable than when I began the day, despite finishing myself off in the very unsatisfying manner I had become accustomed to in Bella's absence. My release did nothing to abate my anxiety. I just wanted to get through the afternoon so we could sit around a large table as a family and talk openly.

For as much appreciation as I had for the past and the process of discovery and adventure that eventually paved the way home...I was so fucking anxious to fast forward through the next several months of my life. Through our announcement, through the looks of "well no shit" and congratulations, through the razzing from my siblings for what seemingly everyone but Bella and I thought was an unnecessary deception. Through months of planning and stress. Through the move and my first overwhelming few months of beginning a practice at the hospital in Seattle. Through the exhaustion and the nerves and the heavy nights where my drained body and mind would barely make it to the mattress before I'd be unconscious, praying Bella felt the overwhelming love I had for her whether or not I had the energy to bring it into fruition.

Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. You have to move through every moment whether you want to or not. A point aptly highlighted by my brother's crassness.

"Bro, we aren't as dumb as we look." He laughed and went about throwing CDs roughly into a box.

I was just on edge enough that he pissed me off. I shot a quick look to Bella, trying to discern which detail exactly my oaf brother was referring to. Her cheeks flamed and she smiled more to herself than to me as she looked down and continued to wrap things and place them gently into a box beside her.

Almost everything was packed already, only the everyday stuff was left out, knowing I would have a small fleet of ready-to-help Cullen elves at my disposal. Sure enough, by mid-afternoon nine years of shit was boxed up to the ceiling with different handwriting in Sharpie labelling the boxes for the contents depending on who packed them. Most of it I highly doubted would ever see the light of day again, but my mother insisted we had a large house to fill and a mortgage to pay for and we should pace ourselves. It would be irresponsible to try and fill it with new stuff right away.

I stood next to a stack of boxes and smiled warily, tracing my hand over the loopy letters that read "clothing" in Bella's script. Beneath that was a box with Em's shoddy chicken scratch that read "pompous shit". I assumed it had the grad books stuffed with weathered papers and research reports that had been on the coffee table and the bookshelf beside it.

"So, dinner tonight, eh?" The oaf himself appeared at my side, placing his arm over my shoulder and jostling me roughly.

"Yep," I murmured noncommittally rubbing the back of my neck without looking up at him.

"Aight," he chuckled and shoved me before retreating. I leaned my head against the doorframe of my bedroom, looking out into the living room at my family laughing and interacting energetically in front of me with a smile on my lips.

"Let's get dressed for dinner," a soft voice whispered from beside me. I could see her leaning against the opposite side of the door out of the corner of my eye. I smiled at her, sure she was studying my face and that she would see it whether I lifted my head to meet her gaze or not.

"I don't want to wait a whole year," I blurted out because apparently my mouth didn't have a filter. My eyes were still on my parents and siblings.

Just as sure as if she had a roadmap to the chaotic meanderings of my mind, Bella nodded, understanding exactly what I meant though I gave her very little to work with. "Me either," she whispered. "Who says weddings have to be in the summer?" She shrugged and her fingers found the edges of my tee shirt, pulling me toward her.

"I thought you wanted to do in my parents' backyard?" I asked.

I knew she had visions of a flowing dress, white flowers, and white lights. Simple. Natural. Like us. A dance floor under a tent blanketed in stars and wrapped in warm summery air. Peaceful and natural, like us.

"Yeah, well..." she shook her head lightly without finishing her sentence. I lifted my eyes to hers. The backs of my fingers followed the soft skin in a line from her ear to her jaw and down the side of her neck as I cradled her with my gaze, trying to finish her thoughts in my own head. She leaned into my touch and closed her eyes.

"Don't compromise. I want it to be everything you want it to be, Bella. I'm just being obnoxious. I don't know why I'm in such a weird mood. Ignore me." I hoped she would. She deserved the world. I would wait forever for her. I already had. What was another twelve months or so?

"Edward...," she drew my name out making it many more syllables than it needed. The end of it sounded like a question.

"Yeah?"

"What if..." she began thinking aloud. "What if we didn't take a year to plan it? I mean, it's not like we need to book a crowded venue or anything, right? And actually, on that note...we could always do it in _our_ backyard. We could spend the summer getting it appropriately landscaped and you know your sister and Mom can throw together an event with much less time than this, and we want something simple anyway. It would be cool. Like the ultimate house-warming party." Her eyes were distant as she envisioned the scene her mind was actively conjuring up. She nodded lightly to herself as if she was growing to like her own idea the more she thought of it. I was instantly in love with it.

My palms found the sides of her face as I smashed my lips to hers to show her how much I loved her idea. She giggled against my mouth but didn't try to move. I pressed her against the door jamb and kissed her with everything I had. I knew four pairs of eyes were surely on us, regardless of any prior knowledge, mouths would be agape at seeing such a blatant display after so many years of discretion.

I didn't care. I kissed the beautiful, perfect woman in front of me fervently, gripping her head as if I could physically hold her to me for the rest of my life that way. Our kiss ended faster than I would have liked under different circumstances, but possibly a bit too long considering the reality. As our movements slowed, I pulled back slightly, my lips still touching hers, grinning. My wide eyes stared straight into hers, confirming. Her hands crept up my front slowly. When she got to the centre of my chest she shoved me back, giggling.

"You're easy to please," she joked through her laughter, her cheeks quickly coloring.

A throat cleared loudly behind us. "And... On that note maybe we should all clean up and get ready for dinner?" My father, with amusement in his voice.

Without looking back at them I tugged on Bella's hand, her fingertips were still lightly resting on my stomach, and pulled her into my room kicking the edge of the door shut with the heel of my foot. It closed with a loud click and my brother shouted something obscene from the other side. Though his words were highly inappropriate, the ideas weren't all that bad.

On our side of the door, I leaned against it and narrowed my eyes at Bella as she sat against the foot of the bed regarding me. I waggled my eyebrows suggestively.

"God, I wish we could," she groaned, squeezing her thighs together and twisting her body seeking friction. "Some of us didn't exactly get a chance to get off earlier." She crossed her arms against her chest and scowled, though I knew she didn't really begrudge me anything.

"Please," I muttered sharply, closing the distance between us. "As if that did the trick." The heat was still a demanding fist in the middle of my belly–the tops of my thighs and the base of my spine were coiled tightly. Only Bella could reach in and unravel everything.

"Later," she whispered and spun on her heel disappearing into the bathroom with her undergarments before I could get my hands on her. "I have to get ready," she called over her shoulder just as she closed the door behind. The next thing I knew the shower was running as she washed away the remnants of travel and a dusty day of packing leaving me in the middle of my own bedroom frustrated yet again.

I grabbed the pair of slim cut black trouser pants my sister brought back for me the last time she was in Italy and yanked a long-sleeve white and lavender button-down off a hanger from inside my closet, fighting only for a moment with the busted-ass accordion door before forgoing it and leaving it open. I was about to slip the shirt over my head when another thought occurred to me.

Bella's forehead rest against the shower wall opposite the spray of hot water, bent arms above her as the heat loosened her muscles. She looked over at me with a roll of her head as I pulled open the door. Her dark hair snaked around her neck and shoulders and down her back. She smirked as if she was expecting me.

"Mmm... I like those pants on you," she murmured, giving me a once-over.

I didn't answer. I reached up and diverted the shower head to the far wall. Then, with my hand at her hip, I gently pushed her in the same direction. She resumed her prior position exactly, the only difference being the way her head lolled back as her entire body relaxed and waited for what she knew was coming. Not caring to take the time to remove my pants, I hastily rolled the hems up and stepped in, leaving the door open so I could stand as far away from the water as possible.

I gathered her wet hair in my hands and freed it from its knots, laying it between her shoulder blades. I left my fingers against her skin and opened my hands to trail my palms down her back and over the dip above her ass. I gripped her left hip firmly to hold her exactly as I wanted her and let my right hand continue down the path of her body, along the rise of her ass cheek, slowly over the swell of it and then under. I rotated my wrist and slid two fingers between her legs, making several sweeps back and forth, top to bottom, listening to the sounds she made as they floated up with the steam and found my ears.

I pushed my fingers inside her and dragged them back out purposefully, the position allowed me to easily glide across the most sensitive parts of her insides. Her body shook. I pushed and pulled a few more times slowly until her right hand fisted into a ball against the tiles above her head. My fingertips squeezed roughly into the slippery flesh of her hip, silently demanding that she come. I made a few more passes, pushing deeper, sliding out slower, but I couldn't reach her front to grant her any friction.

Her fist opened and dropped down the wall in several jerky movements, meeting me at the juncture between her thighs. She rubbed while I pumped and in seconds she was clenching around my fingers. Her knees threatened her and her moans bounced around loudly between the shower walls. I removed my fingers from the warmest, wettest, most perfect place they ever visited, and moved my hand back up her spine to her shoulders, keeping contact the entire way. She was immobile save for the aftershocks of her orgasm still trembling through her, her cheek pressed to the tile.

Her back rose and fell rapidly as she came down from the high and I watched with rapt attention until she seemed to stabilize. My hand pushed the water against her skin as it glided over her right shoulder and gripped around her collarbone, pulling her back slightly toward me so I could avoid the spray. "I love you," I whispered coarsely in her ear with a kiss and then stepped out of the stall, closing the door behind me, vaguely registering the garbled murmuring of her reply.

I quickly finished getting dressed– loosely rolling up my shirt cuffs, shoving them up my forearms and throwing on a dark grey vest. I spent all of four seconds on my hair before giving up and then grabbed some socks and shoes and made my way into the living room. Only Allie was out there, surprisingly the first ready to go. I sat next to her on the couch eyeing her dramatically. She knew what I gawking at.

"Oh, shut up. I don't _always_ take forever," she joked. When I laughed loudly in reply she added a grumbly "whatever" and bumped her knee against mine.

I brought my foot up to the coffee table in front of us and pulled a sock on, still laughing at her. As I lifted my other foot she noticed the bottoms of the expensive dress pants she scrupulously selected for me were all wet.

"Why are your... Ugh. Never mind." She shook her head to clear her thoughts and made dramatic gagging motions.

I continued laughing with a cocky smirk until I realised something. "Seriously, this coming from the girl who likes to help dress up my girlfriend in slutty lingerie for me? Really?" I cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Yes. Well…I have good taste and _lots _of practice at it for myself, so... You're welcome, by the way," she remarked and proudly crossed her little arms across her chest.

"Ugh!" It was my turn to violently shake the thoughts from my brain. My little sister giggled obnoxiously at me. "So, so wrong…" I muttered as I shook.

"What's so funny," my mother's usually comforting voice sang as she exited one of the rooms from down the hall.

Allie and I looked at each other with wide eyes, then back to my mother and choked out the word "nothing" through a fit a giggles. Mom smiled at us and continued into the kitchen to rummage through her purse, leaving us to our secrets.

"Seriously though, that trench coat idea was hot, right?" Allie whispered in my ear to further madden me.

"Shut up!" I abruptly stood and shoved her in the back of the couch with a throw pillow to her face, appalled. I mean, it _was_ hot, but still...

"So, where are we going?" my brother asked, rubbing his palms together eagerly as he emerged from the hallway. "'Cuz I am star-ving."

"You're always starving," Alice scoffed under her breath fixing her hair with her fingertips.

"Yeah, well, you're always irritating, but we still love _you_," Emmett fired back, unfazed.

"She _is _irritating, isn't she?" I chimed in, nodding enthusiastically and earning a swift smack to my shoulder from the one in question. I kicked her playfully and she scowled.

"Hey, hey, enough. Honestly, do you two need to be separated?" my mother scolded with a smile just as I heard my bedroom door open behind us.

I turned around, still muttering with laughter, until I sputtered to an abrupt stop and my heart lurched at the sight of Bella. She had on a short red dress and the black heels from earlier, the ones she once had to retrieve herself from the bottom of my closet. I smirked at the memory coupled with the earlier conversation with my sister.

The dress itself was red lace overtop an exposed black lining. The neckline was an innocent heart-shape with a black band at the waist. The red lace hem hung an inch lower than the black lining and her legs were ten miles long beneath that. It suited her perfectly. I noticed the black ring I gave her on one finger and the engagement ring around her neck, which was now exposed for all of the world to see, though I knew neither of us planned on acknowledging it until we were seated at the restaurant.

"If you get drool on my Blahnik's I'll murder you," Alice whispered loudly, intending to sound menacing and not at all discreet. I quickly composed my facial features and blinked stiffly a few times. From across the room my brother let out a loud cat-call, ever the gentleman.

"Oh, Bella, you look lovely," my mother exclaimed with her hand over her chest as she looked up from her purse to see what the commotion was over. I immediately crossed the room and met Bella, but not before noticing my mother's eyes as they silently surveyed the jewellery adorning Bella's chest before averting. I smirked crookedly at my fiancé as I approached her, sliding my arm around her waist and leaning back so I could drink in the sight up close.

"'Lovely' is an understatement," I whispered to her, my eyes locked on hers as she looked up at me bashfully through her lashes, blinking them a few times, clearly a little uncomfortable with all the attention. My fingertips pressed firmly to the divot at the base of her spine as I spoke, not wanting her to shy away.

She quirked her lips to the side and bowed her head to look down at her dress before meeting my eyes again. "You don't think it's too much? I just figured, you know, given the occasion and all…"

"You're perfect," I interrupted, because she was. I toyed with the ring that fell just above the neckline of her dress and my eyes pricked with heavy emotion.

I was so fucked. If I could barely handle standing there looking at this woman in a red cocktail dress with my ring, _her _ring, around her neck, what the fuck was going to happen when she came down the aisle in a white gown and I placed the ring on her finger in front of hundreds of people?

We had a table booked at New York's iconic Russian Tea Room, which in itself would have been an indicator that the night was about more than celebrating my PhD. No one _just goes _to the Tea Room. The place didn't disappoint, from the moment we walked underneath the signature red awning and through the doors we were immersed in extravagance from floor to ceiling. I gave the hostess our name and she graciously led us into the Bear Lounge, highlighting a few of the notable historical points regarding the restraint in what was more than likely a bogus Russian accent as we walked.

The walls were a deep green with brightly painted gold mouldings. The sides of the room were flanked by prism cut mirrors with gold candelabras mounted against them and red leather U-shaped booths. At one end of the room stood a tall bronzed pear tree with vibrant blown-glass pears dangling from the bare branches, while at the other end stood a smoked glass bear on his hind legs made to resemble an ice sculpture juggling shiny brass balls. The ceiling was glass tiles with blue and gold ambient lighting projecting down from them, dancing off the walls of mirrors and bathing the entire room in a muted technicolour. A row of large round tables draped in white cloth ran down the centre of the room, one of which we were directed to.

Some time later, a bottle of 2002 Louis Roederer was chilling in a tall ice bucket beside our table and my father raised his glass in toast. The rest of us followed suit obediently. Surprisingly, all eyes were not on me alone as he spoke the way I would have thought –they bounced between me and the woman beside me whose hand I was openly holding atop the table. I could see her magnificent smile out of the corner of my eye as I nodded to my father and Bella beamed proudly at me.

"To Edward," everyone murmured after my father's little speech.

"And Bella," Alice squeaked, promptly shoving her champagne flute to her lips as a cover up while I narrowed my eyes at her. "Oh, just get on with it already." Her eyes chastised me from across the table and her little hand rolled impatient circles in the air, prompting me to finally address the oversized elephant sharing the table with us.

I cleared my throat and smiled at Bella. Her slow blink and gentle return smile told me she wanted me to proceed.

"Alright. Well, first of all, thank you. I mean it, without you guys I would have never made it, not even close. I don't mean to be corny or whatever, but you guys really gave me the strength to get through such a long, hard time away from home when I didn't have the strength myself. I would have easily drowned without you. But now….I feel like I can finally breathe a little easier, you know? Like everything is lining up exactly the way it's supposed to be." I paused and looked down at my fingers where they laced through Bella's. Her hand looked so small and delicate inside mine. My thumb crossed over the top of hers and rubbed the top of her middle finger slowly while I chose my words. I didn't lift my eyes from our hands as I continued. "I don't think I ever really belonged out here. If I would have been smarter a long time ago I never would have come. Even the best moments out here were tainted because I couldn't share them with any of you, or my friends, or the people I consider my family that, case in point, couldn't even be here tonight. I should have never left my _home, _but I did, and I can't bring myself to regret that now because…well…I fought really goddamn hard for this. For _all _of this." I squeezed Bella's hand lightly.

My parents unknowingly interrupted my speech to reiterate their pride in me, how they never once doubted me or the greatness they were sure I was meant for. Of course they didn't, they were truly the most loving and supportive parents any kid. Alice and Bella exchanged knowing grins as my parents spoke, knowing I was waiting for them to finish before I went on.

"And…" I began again. "I realise Bella and I haven't been fooling anyone for a long time now, and whether you get it or not," I shot a pointed look to my sister, "it was important for us to work at our own pace. There was just…_so much _at stake. So, thanks for that as well." I paused, unintentionally being dramatic as I looked at Bella and raised her fingers to my lips.

My mother and sister had smiles that split their faces. I wasn't sure if they already knew or if they thought I was going to be as lame and cheesy as to propose at the dinner table. Either way our secret was out.

"I asked Bella to marry me." The words came out quieter than I meant them to. It didn't matter, they heard me. My mother clasped her hands one on top of the other over her mouth as tears instantly sprang to her eyes. My father nodded. Alice squealed and clapped bouncing in her chair.

"You do realise, we knew about that shit already too, right?" Emmett joked once the standard round of congratulations died off.

I shrugged. I figured as much.

My soul was light. My smile was unshakeable.

"Well, Charlie may have mentioned something to your father and I a few months ago, but technically we had no idea when you would do it," my mother confessed looking unnecessarily sheepish. "Well, that is, until I saw that ring around your neck earlier." She nodded in Bella's direction.

"Al told me," Emmett boasted with a wide grin. My sister tried to glare at him but ended up giggling instead, bubbling over with excitement.

I just laughed. I found the parallel to the pretence of secrecy that already surrounded our relationship funny. "And who exactly told you?" I turned my attention to my little sister, already knowing the answer to my question.

In a rare moment of silence she mashed her lips together and shrugged, her eyes twinkling as she refused to make eye contact with me. I noticed my mother smiling in my direction, only her eyes weren't exactly on me, they were looking at the blushing woman beside me.

"_You _told her?" I gaped at Bella, only pretending to be surprised. "So much for our deal, Miss Swan." I playfully narrowed my eyes and shook my head, enjoying the idea that I wouldn't be able to call her that for much longer.

"Oh, c'mon! You don't really expect a girl to get engaged and not run and tell her best friend do you?"

Her words warmed my heart. My family was her family, long before any documents would make it official. Back when my parents loved her parents. Back when our mothers held one another's hands in the delivery room. When our father's watched sports together and drank expensive scotch. When we comforted and protected. When we cherished and encouraged and grew together. When we laughed. And cried. When we celebrated and mourned. When we fought to stay whole. Every one of us were connected. We have always been family. We were blessed enough to consider one another friends.

"Well, you didn't run _that _directly, as I recall," I mock-whispered, giving her the cheekiest smirk I could as I silently reminded her of our naked bodies rolling around in the backyard under the stars…multiple times. I winked to drive home the highly inappropriate point, chuckling to myself.

"Oh my God. The next day, whatever," she grumbled, glowering at me. The entire table stifled their laughter and Bella glared at me until her cheeks and the tips of her ears matched the red lace on her dress. I considered us even.

"So, if you're all done with your crude comments… Can I put this on my finger now, or…?" She delicately twirled the ring where it hung at the bottom of the chain around her neck.

"Please do." I couldn't have meant it more.

Bella turned her back to me and gathered her hair to the side, allowing me access to the clasp of the locket. I unhooked it and carefully slid the ring from the chain as Bella repositioned herself to face me again. Her eyes were shining and her cheeks were still flushed as all eyes were on us. I left the locket on the table and held the ring between my thumb and two fingers.

Bella bit her lip as she looked at me anxiously, emotions I knew by heart swimming in her eyes. She blinked and both eyes spilled over. I cocked my head to the side and gave her an understanding, yet amused grin.

"I can't help it," she whispered, swiping at her cheeks and sniffling. She swallowed thickly and then looked back to me.

"Get on your knee, asshole."

"I already did that, Emmett, thank you." I spat back at him, only tearing my eyes from Bella for a quick second.

"Yeah he did," Alice confirmed in an excited whisper. I had to roll my eyes at her and wonder just how detailed of a report Bella offered her.

"Will you guys be quiet," my mother scolded them, always my saviour.

I sighed and turned my chair so I could properly face my fiancé. "Bella?" Her name rolled off my tongue naturally, the way it always had since the first time I said it twenty-six years before. I looked up at her from under my eyelashes, my face angled down at the ring I held between my fingers. "Will you please never take this ring off again…_as long as we both shall live_?"

More tears happily ran from her eyes as she smiled and nodded. I slid the platinum circle of diamonds and sapphires and memories onto her finger where it looked to me as if it had always existed. She whispered a single word before pulling my face to hers for a kiss.

"Yes."

* * *

Don't be afraid.

But this is just about it.

IT.

Ya know?

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

XOX


	45. Yes

*****UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE PLEASE DONT HATE ME*****

WELP.

Where do I even begin...? I mean, this fandom has so much heaviness in our hearts right now that I thought perhaps we could use some happiness.

I am deeply sorry for the delay, it wasn't in any was my intention. I have been taking time to train for a marathon and events like the Warrior Dash etc...and at the end of the day I have been utterly exhausted but anyhow...this felt right to post now.

I have been torn over this chapter, as you will see, it is much shorter than usual...however, there were things that just had to get out there before the final chapter and they couldn't be combined so...it is what it is. I sincerely hope it isn't a disappointment to anyone.

I love you all. That may seem overly dramatic because, really, how could I? But I do. I love humanity. For all of its ups and downs and good times and bad...love, honour, respect...they seem like simple enough words but the realities are always more difficult. This is all very fitting not just in the fandom right now but in this chapter. You will see what I mean. If you are even reading this because omg Im rambling...

There is no HF in this story...I'm just emotional OKAY? Love me through it.

Without further ado...thank you, my beloveds.

* * *

There was no grand coming out party for Bella and me when we returned home. No parade or festival or announcement in the local newspaper. We simply were_. _It was already known. It was accepted as easily as if it were, well, _already_ _known_.

It helped greatly that we had our own house. Couples generally saved the overly dramatic affection for inside the walls of their own home, while displaying only moderate, socially acceptable affection to the masses. We were no different. If we had been paying keen attention, which we artfully were not, then perhaps we would have noticed some lingering eyes or smiles the first few times we kissed in the company of my family members who, while they had known for ages, had rarely if ever witnessed anything of that nature between us. As it was, Bella and I were engaged. There was a wedding to be planned and, because we decided to hell with formalities, quickly. That remained everyone's main focus–"everyone", meaning the Cullen women, a category which I unequivocally placed Bella in.

"You hiding up here so you don't have to be _down there_?"

I twisted around awkwardly in the leather club chair to see behind me. We had just finished with Sunday night family dinner–a new tradition in my parents home as mandated by my mother. As she put it, she had to capitalize off the fact that finally all her children were within close to home and, since our family was continually expanding and busy, our time together was precious. She laid down the law so we were guaranteed to come together at least once a week. No one argued; we had always been a freakishly tight-knit group regardless.

I lay draped across the arms of the chair in the upstairs library with my nose in a book. Technically…I was reading. Literally…I was staring at the words until they blurred together in soft gray lines as my mind ran through the eighteen-fucking-mile-long list of things that had to be done in the back yard in order to make this wedding a reality. And the absolute zero spare time with which I had to accomplish any of it.

My father leaned in through the opened doorway as if he had merely been passing by but saw me and stopped. "Down there" referred to the kitchen where the girls were knee deep in fabric samples, magazines with neon post-its, web pages with everything from wedding dress designers to floral arrangements open in their browsers, and a plethora of chatter that reached decibels I was sure only canines could actually hear. How anything fruitful ever came from that nonsense was beyond me. Luckily, as the groom, I was excused from pretty much all of that stuff as long as I agreed to show up on the right date, wear what I was told, and say "yes" when prompted by the guy with the robe on.

"Absolutely," I deadpanned without looking up from my book, afraid if I did the mental to-do list I had balanced in the air around my head would scatter hopelessly around my feet, letting everyone down.

My father laughed and entered the library. "Do you mind?" From my periphery I saw him nod to the chair across from me.

I shook my head lightly, took another moment to properly stow my thoughts, and then lay my book on the floor. As if I would ever mind my father's company. "What's up?"

Before he sat, he walked over to the drink cart and poured us two drinks. Scotch I suspected though his body blocked his movements. I would happily accept the warm, salving liquor. I had begun my practice at the Seattle Hospital four weeks before, after settling back into the city. Every day was exhausting, paper work was gruelling, real live patients whose outcomes I was tampering with was a horrifying reality that was taking time to settle in to, and the hours were practically around the clock with no end in sight as I established my clientele in addition to impromptu hospital psych evals meanwhile administering all of my own paper work. I was going to have to hire an assistant and quickly but when the hell was I supposed to find the time for ad placing and interviews?

I wasn't sure how Bella and I were even managing to find the time to lay in bed next to one another, let alone communicate in any way. Thankfully, we did. Every night, regardless of the countless meetings and press appoints she had or the paperwork I had to file and delicately situated patients I had thrown at me twenty minutes before I was scheduled to exit the building–we ended the day exactly as it began, cocooned under a downy comforter in our own bedroom, in our new home, with our limbs tangled around one another. More often than not, all we did in that fabulous four-poster bed was sleep…deeply. Though, lately we seemed to be making an extra effort.

My father handed me the drink, and as I brought it to my lips, I smiled into the tumbler already smelling the hearty aroma of a well-aged scotch and anticipating the warmth. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back after swallowing, letting my body relax into the chair, not realising until that moment how rigidly I had been perched in my place.

"A bit draining, isn't it?" he asked with an all-knowing eyebrow raise, the very same expression I spent hours trying to imitate as a child and had now perfected. It was obvious he was referring to my work and not the wedding plans.

From there we launched into hospital talk. He had so much to offer. The man was a wealth of knowledge and compassion and it never failed to amaze me how thoroughly I idolized him in moments like that. When he spoke of his patients his eyes lit up and his entire posture altered, his body language became more passionate with grand, sweeping hand gestures and a voice that rang with ardent care. That was what led me into the medical field. Not the medicine or the science, not the psychology of the mind, though granted I did find that aspect more enticing than the body, but my father's enthusiasm for bettering the lives of those in need, those who cannot help themselves, those who need someone to take the reins and guide them through the thickest, murkiest path their life will likely cross.

When the conversation died down he switched gears. "So, your brother was just mapping out some of the plans you two have been drawing up for the back yard. Sounds hefty. Can all of that be done in time?"

"Fuck, it better." I laughed humourlessly imagining a wedding ceremony taking place in a heap of mud and scrubbed my palms over my tired face. While my bride was surely very low maintenance as far as brides go, I was pretty sure that wasn't what she envisioned. And my sisters would have my head, so a swamp-themed wedding was out of the question.

He just snorted and nodded, staring into his nearly empty glass. With a final swig he emptied his tumbler, set it on the table beside him, and returned his hands to his lap where he spun his wedding band around pensively without looking at me. "So, I don't mean to be intrusive but…I know you and Bella are eager to move forward with your lives…"

I sat up a little straighter, he had my attention. His voice had done that very subtle shifting that I recognised in my father's tone, where it drifted from casual banter to serious doctor-dad. I don't know why I expected him to say something bad, but the small, silent, perpetual pessimist inside the back of my mind was on full alert. And my father looked nervous, which he rarely was.

"I just wanted to put this out there that…any woman who has been on an oral contraceptive for over ten years will likely need some time to flush the hormones from her system before successfully conceiving. Just in case you weren't aware…" He trailed off after all of his prior words came out in a rush, blending together in a very un-_my-father-_like manner. And if I wasn't mistaken his cheeks were pinkening. "You two have been very patient and successful because of it, and I would hate to see you go through any avoidable emotional hardships in this area so…just putting that quick advice in where I can." He made eye-contact out of respect but I could tell he'd rather be looking at his lap again than me.

I couldn't help myself from laughing. I don't know why I was always sitting around like an unappreciative jackass waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. One of these days I would realise there were no other shoes. My life was full of single, beautiful, shining shoes with no matches.

My laughter seemed to alleviate him of his anxiety. I mean, honestly, I was well over the awkward stage of discussing sex with my father. After all, the poor man had witnessed quite enough to make simple conversation a non-event. "Don't worry about it, Dad, but thanks. She's been off the pill for a while now."

He looked up, clearly relieved I wasn't offended by his forward counsel. "Oh, I see. Good. Well, in that case, good luck with those condoms," he chuckled. It was my turn to snort into my glass, but not for the reason he assumed. "Sorry, I suppose that _really_ _was_ a little out of line, considering…" he made a vague gesture between the two of us.

"No," I continued laughing. "Its fine, it's just that…I've honestly never used a condom in my life, Dad. Sorry. I guess I'm not exactly the poster-boy for proper protection. So, I can't say I know from experience how awful they are. Although, I suppose that doesn't take a genius to figure out?"

"Wait…but I thought you just said…"

My father was a brilliant man, but I caught him off guard with my admission. I could practically see the gears turning in his brain as his thought process played out all over his face. I could just as clearly make out the moment when enlightenment nailed him in the chest.

"You two aren't doing anything to prevent a pregnancy?" He was adorable. He seemed genuinely gobsmacked.

"Nah." I was smirking arrogantly, enjoying watching his mind do the math. "We're kind of doing everything we can to _encourage _a pregnancy. Well…that's not exactly true, I guess. But we are forcing our tired asses to do things other than sleep at the end of the night lately, just to, you know, see what happens." I shook my head at my own words, as if making love to Bella was such torture. Though, honestly, some nights…I've been really fucking tired.

"Well, as a doctor, I think I am qualified to tell you _exactly_ what will happen, Son." His face was beginning to slacken and a smile was hinting at the corners of his mouth as he realised what I was telling him.

"Dad, we're planning a wedding in twelve weeks. We kind of figure there isn't a whole lot of damage we can do within that timeframe. And neither of us really care if she's pregnant at the wedding. We know what we're doing."

"So is she…?"

"No. Well…she wasn't as of a few weeks ago." I probably shouldn't have been as disappointed then as I was.

"I see." He nodded while looking at the floor for a moment and processing. When he raised his gaze to meet mine his smile was ten miles wide. "Well…congratulations in advance. I'm sure everything will work out just fine."

I was confident it would too.

Sunday nights after the family dinners were shaping up to be one of the few nights that Bella and I found ourselves home, together, and relaxed by a semi-decent hour. It was just past eleven as I scrubbed the towel over my wet head and closed the shower door mindlessly with my heel as I walked away. It closed harder than I meant to and rattled loudly, shaking the glass walls and echoing in the marble bathroom. I cringed and waited for what I knew was coming.

"Edward, stop doing that. You're going to break the glass one day, geez."

I wrapped the towel around my waist and slowly entered the bedroom through the open en suite doorway, smirking at Bella.

She sat at the top of the bed, leaning against the headboard with her legs outstretched and her laptop on her knees. She had her lower lip pinched between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand while she scrolled through whatever she was looking at with her right. I stood at the end of the bed grinning at her until she looked up.

"What?" she giggled, already knowing what.

"Nothing," I murmured, highly amused.

"Shut up." She narrowed her eyes and twisted up her face in a sorrowful attempt at scowling at me. I smiled wider. Bella rolled her eyes and that was the end of that conversation. With any luck all martial discord could be so smoothly straightened out in the future.

I crawled carefully onto the bed and sprawled out on my stomach next to her, sneaking a sideways peak at the screen of her laptop.

"What are you doing?"

"Stealing back control of this wedding from your sister," she sneered, glowering with much better force at the computer, properly motivated.

"Ha! Good luck with that." I laughed, settling myself next to her.

"Oh, she's out of control. Believe me, Edward, I _need _to."

I just nodded, closing my eyes with my head next to her lap. My fingers trailed idly up and down the outside of her leg enjoying the silken texture and the connection.

"I mean, Rosalie's wedding was over the top, and God help us if Alice and Jasper ever decide to stop living in sin…"

I growled, though the sound was muffled as I lay against her hip, not wishing to think about my sister or any manner of her and Jasper's sins.

"…but you and I, I mean, we don't need that many elaborate details, do we? You won't feel like anything is lacking if things are a little simpler than all that, right?"

I opened my eyes. She was worrying at her lip with her teeth this time and her eyes looked genuinely concerned. My sisters were getting in her pretty little head and I made a mental note to have a chat with each of them.

Pushing myself up to my knees, not caring whether my towel came with me or not, I cupped her face in my hands, relishing in the brief, expected moment where my blood fluttered inside every vein and my organs tingled as my body registered how perfectly her head fit into my palms…her life into mine. Her eyes were squared with mine and the faint smile on her lips revealed that she already knew what I was going to say but I said it anyway.

"Isabella, at the end of the day will there be a signed marriage certificate with our names on it?"

"Yes," she whispered, smiling wider, squishing her cheeks further into my embrace.

"And will I be able to call you my wife?"

"Yes."

"And will you have promised to love me forever?" I was broadly smiling myself at this point.

"Yes." Her glowing face was my entire life in that moment.

"Those are the only _details _I care about. Nothing else matters. And I guarantee you that at the end of the day, about the only thing I _won't _be feeling is 'lacking'. Understood?"

She nodded, taking my hands along with her.

"Good. Then please, just do the things that you want to do and don't let Alice and Rosalie gang up on you. For once, it's not about them."

"I love you." Her words were a whisper, not because they weren't reverent in their meaning or important enough to be shouted from a rooftop, but because, like the simple backyard wedding, that was all we needed.

"I love you, too. You about done with that?" I nodded at the laptop, not yet letting go of her face.

"No," she scoffed and I'm certain my face visibly fell. "I have a feeling I won't be done with that for another, what, ten or so weeks? But I think I've seen all I want to see for one night, if that's what you're asking."

She slapped the top down and shoved it aside roughly, taking her frustration out on the expensive technology. Her fingers wrapped around my wrists on either side of her face. "I take that back," she whispered, shuffling to her knees, not yet letting go of me, where I was not yet letting go of her. "There are a few more things I'd like to see."

She urged me back gently as she crawled over my legs so she could sit atop my thighs. She still had my wrists in her hands but they were no longer against her cheeks. They lowered as we moved and she settled them against her sides.

I smirked up at her as she peeled the tank top she planned on sleeping in over her head. Something inside me was almost manically giddy. It had been a while since I saw the feisty, playful side of her. Fuck sleep. It felt like all I was doing lately was working and sleeping. If I was lucky there was the occasional food, shower, and _maybe _sex. Fast sex. No-foreplay sex. In the dark, in our bed, with tired bodies. One step from scheduled-lets-get-serious-about-procreating sex. Fuck schedules.

In the seven seconds it took for her to shed her tank top and toss it by the laptop, my mood darkened significantly. I knew the first few months back in Washington, at the hospital, starting clinicals, and taking on real patients would be draining, but knowing that and living it were two different things. All of my dreams were sitting in the palms of my hands now and all I wanted to do was sit back and enjoy them. Our house. My wife. The proximity. The success. We worked hard. We sacrificed…a lot. We'd gained…everything. I wanted to relish in it even just for that one night before the grind swallowed us up whole again starting in the morning.

"See something you like, Cullen?" she grinned down at my narrowed, hooded eyes, flexing her hips and rocking against me just enough for me to feel it.

"I believe you were the one discussing the things you did and did not want to see tonight…Isabella Cullen." I tried the name on for size for the first time out loud. There weren't adequate words to describe the way hearing it made me feel.

Her face slackened and her lips dropped open into a soft little _O_ shape as she let the title wash over her. She liked the sound of it, too.

She leaned forward and copied my earlier gesture, cupping my face in her hand, resting her elbows against my chest to steady herself. "This. This is what I want to see," she murmured quietly, pulling with her fingertips behind my ears so my face tilted up toward hers. I was putty in her gentle, loving hands. She lowered herself even closer so her nose could brush mine. "Your eyes. I miss looking into your eyes and what they promise when you make love to me."

Could she be any more precious? Well, maybe just the one tiny detail.

I sat up and wrapped my arms around her, holding her close to me as I switched our positions. My towel stayed on the bed and her body rest directly below mine. I removed my hands from her soft skin only long enough to drag her bottoms from her hips, over her thighs, and off her ankles as she helped me by kicking them free. Now she was perfect. I lay over the top of her. She lifted her back and head from the bed enough that I could slide my hands underneath, skimming her warmed skin and settling against the back of her head to cradle her.

"Hey?" I whispered, nuzzling my nose against her neck and ear and hair, kissing and sucking lightly everywhere I touched. Her bent legs melted into the mattress below, settling me closer. "What are you doing on August fourteenth?"

She giggled and her fingertips combed through my hair, scratching softly as I took her earlobe between my teeth and tugged. She sighed and her head relaxed even further into my palms. I found the weight of it reassuring.

"I'll have to check my schedule. I'm a very busy person these days," she said in a bubbly voice, playing long.

"Well, if you don't have anything planned that day…feel like marrying me?"

"Yes," she breathed and shimmied subtly beneath me, enjoying the contact. And then, "I miss you."

Her sad words devastated me despite the layer of playful banter. We had fought so hard to be together and now, even in the aftermath of the trying times, now when we should be revelling in the perfect happiness enjoying one another, we felt apart. The black fog of distance was a silent killer the way it crept in unannounced and undetected.

I knew it was temporary. I knew she was just as busy and exhausted as I was. I knew neither of us blamed the other. But still…_still…_a red flag billowed in the wind in my brain, waving ominously at me, reminding me that things slip through unsuspecting fingertips when least expected. I always vowed to safeguard our relationship much better the second time around. And so her words rattled violently inside my heart and my mind and right then and there I wanted to start anew, to make amends, to try harder. I remembered the night we made love on the front porch of my parents' house Christmas Eve and all the things I promised her then. Promises that were just as important now as they were then, and for every day into our future. The relationships closest to our hearts are the ones that seem to require the most diligence. It was a lesson we could never afford to forget.

Bella was a remarkable human being. Her inner strength and heart awed me, humbled me, held me. We would never again stumble and fall, jeopardising the foundation with which our love was built; our friendship. Our trust and intimacy grew daily and in the trying, exhausting times it thrived where once it felt fragile. Her love, her arms around me, her faith and trust in my ability to safeguard her heart and her future…was everything to me. It was the reason I got out of bed in the morning even if her warm body next to me was also the reason I wished to stay in.

I love her.

"Oh, Bella. I miss you, too. I'm so sorry," I whispered through wavering breaths and nuzzled faces.

"Hush." And her legs wrapped around me and in an instant she welcomed me into her body, into her life, into her future, just as she always had–with faith and unconditional adoration.

Our movements were slow and deliberate. Her eyes stayed connected to mine as gentle words left my lips. Words of love and honour, respect and trust, companionship and family. She was my entire world, wrapped up in this precious woman whose soul was intertwined with mine just as thoroughly as her body. Our past, our future. She held me just as closely as I was holding her and just as passionately, matching my sentiments with her own and possessing me just as assuredly as I possessed her.

When we finished we lay curled around one another, sticky, panting, beyond exhausted, and happy. We didn't bother with blankets. Instead we drift off to a perfect sleep keeping one another warm with nothing but our embrace, our promises, and the warm summer night air as our blanket.

The alarm screamed through the bedroom and scraped like nails on a chalkboard through the inside of my head as I begrudgingly peeled back my eyelids feeling like I had only just drifted off into a blissful sleep. The morning light was gray but too bright and I winced angrily, turning my face into the mattress beside me to bury the sights and sounds I dreaded most. Morning.

Beside me, Bella grumbled and burrowed her face under my arm that draped across her bare shoulders. The blankets were perfectly made beneath us and her skin was pebbled with a chill from the ceiling fan and the early morning air. She made absolutely no move whatsoever to silence the fucking alarm.

"Isabella!" I groaned from half under a pillow, thrusting my elbow that she was trying to use to block out the sound in the general direction of her head. Why the alarm was always on her side of the bed baffled me. We did this every fucking morning. Except this morning was different. This morning we were naked…and didn't have to waste time making the bed later.

A chain of incoherence left her lips as she raised herself up on her elbows and whacked at the iPod dock a few times until it quieted. Thank God. She lowered herself back down to the mattress and snuggled in closer to me, digging her toes under my calves and her arms under mine, seeking more warmth. I half grumbled, half laughed at her as I pulled the edges of the comforter around the outsides of our bodies, burritoing us inside.

She sighed happily and rest her chin against my chest, looking up at me from under her tired lashes, grinning, blinking slow, lazy blinks. "Good morning," she giggled.

Her laughter was infection and I joined her, sliding my hand down her side, digging into her hip and pulling her closer. "Good morning."

Our kiss was slow, unhurried despite the morning hour and the need to get places and do things. We _were _doing something. Nothing was going to take precedent.

"I can't believe I'm lucky enough to wake up like this every morning for the rest of my life," I murmured in a moment of cheesy bliss, skimming my palms along her bare skin, feeling the familiar mould of her body and her lips on mine.

"Oh yeah?" she whispered back through our kiss.

"Yeah."

"I don't know…" Her face lifted just enough that when our eyes met they didn't cross.

"No?" I smiled.

"No. I mean, 'the rest of your life'…that could be a really long time."

"Hopefully." I fully snorted, laughing at her calculated elusiveness.

"I don't know if I can commit to this." She made every attempt at narrowing her eyes and shaking her little head looking deadly serious. There wasn't a single molecule inside me that doubted she was playing at something.

"Cold feet?" I asked with a wide grin.

"Yep. Incredibly, incredibly cold feet," she groaned, sliding her frigid toes up my calves and trying to loop her legs under mine to cuddle in closer. I was full-belly laughing by then, shaking her and the bed with me, loosening the covers and allowing the chilly air inside our bubble, much to Bella's dismay. "I mean, I just might feel the desire to sleep _under _the covers every so often, Edward, I'm sorry, I just can't commit to this sleeping arrangement for the rest of your life. Very cold and inconvenient for me. Imagine how horrible it will be in the middle of the winter, I mean, this is the Pacific Northwest, Edward, it may not be the east coast but man it can get…"

"Oh my god, shut up." I silenced her mouth with mine roughly over the top of it, fisting her tangled hair in my fingers and holding her to me like a life line, smiling wolfishly as I kissed her. She was so fucking adorable, and annoying, and perfect, and mine and I felt a certain giddy deliverance knowing we were okay and still _us_.

Her weight shifted all to one knee and I knew immediately that she was adjusting herself to match me. Seconds later we were connected, groaning into one another's mouths, any sense of playfulness left in the dust as she raised and lowered herself over me, the blankets falling completely to our sides, the chilly air assaulting our skin, none of it penetrating our collective awareness. There was only one another, our bodies, our sounds, and the incredible sense of warmth, and fulfillment, and promise that every rotation of her hips and lift of mine brought us. A connection that no matter what life threw at us, would never be broken. It began before we were born and it barrelled forward everyday of our lives, snowballing and accumulating more and more reasons to remain together–more memories, more love, more respect, more commitment. And in a few weeks she would be my wife and I her husband and from that day forward every stranger we encountered would see our rings and know that they were only looking upon half of a greater whole.

The alarm began screeching at deafening decibels beside us. Our eyes opened and met instantly, manic, desperate laughter hinting at the edges. We had obviously been awake for nine minutes, the length of the snooze button which must have been what Bella hit when she tried to silence it earlier.

I growled loudly and threw her on the bed beside me, her giggles tried to fill the air around me but were drown out by the shrill, steady ring of the alarm. In one fluid motion and I reached over, ripped the fucking thing from the wall, switched hands, and then slammed it down on the opposite side of the bed…_my _nightstand. Bella's peels of laughter were much more easily detected as she shook beneath me, looking up at me with her face radiant and wonderful, promising me a lifetime of complete happiness. Her bent knees rest against the sides of my ribcage. My fists dug into the bedding on either side of her head.

"For the rest of your life?" she giggled, sliding her fingers against my jaw, pulling me back to her.

"For the rest of my life."

THE END

* * *

God, life is a happy, painful, complicated, beautiful mess.

Love me.

(re: updated story status. This just felt like the end to me. I'm sorry. The next two chapters will in fact be epilogues. LONG epilogues.

I CANNOT BELIEVE I JUST WROTE THOSE TWO WORDS)

~XOX~

XOX


	46. Hairstyles

So here's the thing...maybe I just can't let go...

But I had this idea of posting a few little mini chapters that lead up to the epilogue and provide some fun insight into the wedding preparations.

So every day for the next four days (Dec 20-23 if you are reading live) I will be posting these very short vignettes. And then the big epilogue on Dec 24th.

To each and every one of you, you are the heart and soul of this story, thank you...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

xox

* * *

It was a rare and beautiful day in the Emerald City. Something that little to do with the golden sun high in the sky, but rather, that it was two o'clock in the afternoon and I was already on my way home from work.

The windows were down and the radio up as I drove the old Jetta off the ferry dock and down Olympic Drive, leaving the city, the hospital, and my worries behind me. It didn't happen often that I was able to leave so early in the day. My spirits soared as I flew along the road closing in on _home_. I had to force myself to reduce my speed and quell my excitement as I wove through the residential neighbourhoods toward my house_. _

I knew Bella would be there–she had nothing on the schedule that morning when I left her bright and early, still snuggled deep into our comforter with a cup of coffee set gently on her bedside table and a kiss on her forehead. That was what prompted me rearrange a few things so I could leave early–I was eager to return to her while the sun was still overhead.

Take out from the little Italian deli next door to the hospital was on the seat beside me and I knew the fridge at home had an unopened case of beer with our names all over it. An afternoon picnic under the sun in our nearly-finished-being-relandscaped backyard sounded like Heaven to me.

We didn't have any backyard furnishings just yet, we were waiting until after the wedding so we didn't need to find a place to store them during the event, but Bella had never been much for over-priced, over-stuffed items that looked like they were better suited indoors rather than out anyhow. She had always thought there was something special about the sun on your face, the breeze in your hair, and the grass between your toes. Lying barefoot on a blanket, wrapped around one another with the scent of summer surrounding us. I couldn't agree more.

It had been a long summer with wedding preparations in full swing, careers being launched, and a steep mortgage to stress over. Time was screaming by us at Mach speeds. After the wedding, Bella and I decided against a fancy honeymoon and instead cleared our schedules to enjoy a week together at home with our families and no stress. We needed time to focus on _us, _unwind, and regroup our minds before launching back into the swing of things as a married couple.

As my name made its way around Seattle my patient list continued to expand, in addition to hospital evaluations, and my new assistant who would need training, the fall was shaping up to be quite hectic. By late October, Bella would have a month of agent meetings in front of her and then a countrywide tour for early holiday book promo. I smiled as I threw the car in park and ignored any anxiety about the chaotic few months ahead. Today, we would relax.

I no sooner walked into the kitchen than I heard high-pitched yelps accompanied by loud crying–not all of which were coming from Bella. I dropped the take-out and my keys on the counter and took the stairs two at a time toward the sound.

There were three bedrooms upstairs in addition to the master; I found _them _in the back room overlooking the yard. The room itself was pretty bare with the exception of a few boxes that had yet to be unpacked. It wasn't exactly tops on our list to fill the spare bedrooms when we had three thousand more functional square feet to try and fill. In addition to the boxes, quite a was scene unfolding.

A pack-and-play was set up in the corner with a two year old rocking it violently, testing its structural integrity while screaming at the top of her lungs over being forcibly detained. A four year old kneeled in the corner on a bright pink beanbag with her head in her hands sobbing uncontrollably. Rosalie was crouched beside Olivia with her arm draped over her back encouragingly, eyes bouncing between both of her children–torn between comforting her eldest and needing to stop Amelia's riot before she broke the playpen or herself.

"It's okay, Sweetheart, I promise," Bella cooed as gently as she could to Olivia.

And the final piece of the puzzle: my sister. "Uhm…No, actually, it's not!" Alice wailed.

"Yes. It. Is." Bella and Rosalie's voices sang staccato style dripping with subtle reprimand, eyes wide at Al.

"Oh, right…uhh…yeh, don't worry, Honey, it will be…erm…_okaaay," _Alice literally choked on the last word as she re-narrowed her eyes and focused back on my future wife who was seated cross-legged on the floor in front of her.

Nothing made any sense. The last two minutes of my life had been a vortex of commotion. Finally, my presence was noticed over the turmoil.

"Oh, hi, Edward." It was Rosalie who first saw me standing in the doorway, trying to figure out what was happening in my home and to my peaceful afternoon plans.

I crossed the room and did the only thing that seemed obvious. I scooped up Amelia. She stopped screaming immediately, all of her worldly problems coming to an abrupt and happy end by simply being freed from the Graco prison walls. Not finding a rag upon first glance, I sacrificed my shirt to clear her poor, snot and tear-smeared face, asking her what on Earth was going on with our family while I did. She didn't answer me.

"So…" I began slowly, eyeing everyone suspiciously. I stood at the centre of the room with the baby in my arms, playfully smacking my cheek and giggling every time I pretended to scowl at her. "Do I want to know…or…?"

"I didn't." Olivia choked out and then hiccoughed loudly. "Mean to." And then she began sobbing again.

"Oh, Honey, it really is okay," Bella repeated, reaching her hand toward the crying little thing and wiggling her fingers at her even though she was still three feet away. Rosalie pet her daughter's head and wiped her face with her hands. "Olivia wanted to play _hairstyles _with me, it's no big deal."

"_Never _allow a four year old near your long hair with a round brush, Bella…isn't that like 'Toddler Hairstyles 101'?" Alice scoffed and then it all made sense. Alice was hunched awkwardly over Bella's head with a pair of cuticle scissors, squinting like she was performing a heart operation. A thin wooden handle was just barely visible somewhere under her hands as she worked. And Olivia looked horrified while watched. "Maybe you _are_ going for an updo look after all," Alice muttered and snipped a chunk of hair, looking as if she felt every ounce of pain the hair could not.

Bella winced as she felt the cut but then quickly smiled when she realised Olivia was studying her every move anxiously.

"I ruined your entire wedding!" Olivia wailed with her hands in the air as she ran from the room. Seconds later down the hall, a door slammed.

"Ugh." Rosalie rolled her eyes and stood. "I have no idea where she gets her dramatics from," she deadpanned, as she exaggeratedly tossed her hair over her shoulder and went after her daughter.

"You may have seriously traumatised that poor kid by overreacting, Alice," Bella grumbled, turning her head slightly to try and glare up at my sister despite the stiff grip she had on her hair.

"Hold still!" Alice swatted Bella on the head and went back to work. "Besides, if I did, Uncle Eddie can just fix her."

A minute later my sister backed away from Bella carefully, her hands in the air, the tiny pair of cuticle scissors still poised between her two fingers. Her head shook and her face looked unconvinced. Her body obstructed my view of Bella from where I sat in the corner playing blocks with Amelia. Olivia and Rosalie had yet to re-enter the room.

I stood with Amelia on my hip and circled around Alice to get a better look at what all the fuss was over. Immediately, I clapped my hand over my mouth, laughing under my palm, eyes shining sympathetically over my fingers at her.

Bella's eyes went straight to mine. She giggled nervously at my reaction. "Is it that bad?" she asked innocently.

I was busy mentally tabulating how long I could keep her from looking in a mirror before she caught on to my scheme. I removed my hand from my mouth slowly and did my best to keep a straight face. I failed miserably.

Through my wide smile and loving eyes I shook my head in lies she saw right through. "Nah, it's…"

"Pretty!" Amelia shouted, clapping excitedly as Alice burst into tears.


	47. Colours

As promised...

* * *

"Peach and grey?" I questioned, speaking around a mouthful of granola. I leaned over Bella's shoulder, trying not to spill my breakfast on her or the folder in her lap while I stole a glimpse.

She was seated at the small table tucked away in the corner by the windows of our kitchen. There was a cold cup of coffee, long forgotten amidst what had to have been a million fabric swatches, two of which she held separately on her upturned palms as she muttered, "I don't…I kind of like these" in an unsure voice, more to herself than me.

"Peach and grey," she repeated, not sounding any more convicted. "I keep going back to them." She spun to look up at me as I spooned more granola and yogurt into my mouth, looking down at her big brown eyes. Eyes that actually had no distinct colour. Yes, they were "brown" but were they really…? On closer inspection, perhaps only on a level I had ever dedicated myself to, they were less chocolate brown and more green and grey and flecks of dark and swirls of light. They were like cat eyes, marbled and endless. And right now they were blinking up at me questioning. "What do you think?"

I think that I love you so fucking much it hurts.

It took me a moment to finish chewing and swallow properly so I could answer her aloud.

"I like It. It feels simple, but in a good way, you know? Like, less stark and formal if that makes sense?"

"Totally. Its very 'backyard-whimsical, right? It just doesn't make sense to put you men in black tuxedos in the middle of the summer, in a garden, at our house. Right…?" She trailed off slowly, her eyes dipped to somewhere around my chest, not seeing anything. "Rosalie doesn't like it, but I think Alice kind of does. Your mother thinks it's a great idea, of course, because she's the most encouraging person on the planet. But…"

"Isabella." Her name was rarely that sharp on my tongue. And I barely ever interrupted her.

"I know."

"I like it." I smiled down at her. Because she was so sweet, and sincere, and I didn't care what colour theme our wedding had I just wanted her to be my wife like yesterday.

"Well then that's settled. You're all that matters."

I shook my head at her with another bite in my mouth.

She smirked, marble eyes glimmering. "We're all that matters."

I winked at her and tapped her nose with my spoon before grabbing her coffee mug to re-heat it for her.

* * *

I am reposting this because my previous post was done on a train via my iPhone, there were embarrassing and random typos, autocorrects, and otherwise random fails...my OCD compels me.

I missed a post yesterday as I''m sure some of you noticed, but as I said in the first version of this chapter, I rushed home for a fatal family emergency. FF is a good escape, thats why were all here isn't it? I will catchup tonight, posting both vignettes I promised you and then tmro the finale epilogue. Along with a long and surely rambling heart gush of thanks so be prepared for that

Air

~xox~


	48. Words

I'm a few days behind...but you know why so...

The irony is that this is the first posting schedule that was supposed to be easy to meet after all my previous failed attempts at organization because the vignettes and the epilogue are completed lol But I was continually in places with no wifi...odd...gramma isn't with the times ;)

Love me

~xox~

* * *

It was Sunday. Bella had a late meeting downtown, so I sat at the kitchen counter in my parent's house alone, waiting for her. I hated when we didn't drive out together, it meant we wouldn't be driving back together. That Bella, with her full tummy, happy heart, and heavy eyelids wouldn't rest her head on my shoulder and gently sway me with her steady breaths while I steered us through the dark night toward the comfort of our own home. That my hand wouldn't nestle in the space between her knees–relaxing, fingers encircling, holding on, breaking the contact only briefly whenever I needed to shift gears–but then I got to relive the thrill that came with slipping my fingers back into place once I finished.

How such routine connections could still jolt my system–palpitate my heart and send adrenaline through my veins after so many years together, decades now–was astounding. Her fingernails lightly scratching over my skin still gave me goose bumps. The sight of her made my heart speed and my stomach flip. Her smile was my entire life and her laughter held my future. The idea that she was mine, that I was hers, and that we had forever together pricked at the backs of my eyes in a way that was painful but perfect all at once.

My days were long, but really, whose weren't? Still, I moved peacefully though the hours, bathed in a personal sense of contentment. My life was everything I had ever wanted it to be. Challenging and exhausting, warm and complete. Bella brought me a sense of happiness I couldn't even begin to put into words.

And therein laid the problem…

A manila folder with coffee stains and worn edges sat opened against the countertop, papers spread everywhere in front of me. Instead of pressing my pen to the paper and writing like I should be, I fluttered it in the air at eye level, blurring my eyes and watching as it became made of rubber.

_This should not be so difficult. _I shoved my fists into my eye sockets and scrubbed until streaks of neon shot across the black, sighing heavily.

I loved Bella since birth. Literally. Her heart was one of the first my own had opened unto, learning how to love, growing around it, embodying and cherishing it, the foundation of everything I was. Family. Conspirer. Inspirer. Confidant. _Friend._

I spent nearly every minute of my life with her in some capacity or another. I knew everything. She knew everything. I _felt _everything. So writing my own vows should be a piece of cake. Except, it wasn't. It was stressing me the fuck out. Everything I wanted to say to her sounded cheesy when I factored in saying it in front of one hundred people and thirty-one people. Nothing sounded original and everything sounded contrived or straight from a romantic comedy. I may as well tell her she completes me and leave it at that.

It was the absolute opposite of how I really felt about her. There was nothing generic about our love. There was something special about it. We were rare. We knew that…everyone knew that. I could ramble endlessly to complete strangers about her and how she made me feel, and yet, the only thing on the piece of paper in front of me were lines of writing that had been scratched out furiously.

I rest my forehead against the paper in defeat just as the kitchen door swung open. High-pitched, mile-a-minute girl chatter flooded the kitchen immediately and I knew any concentration I may have been able to summon was going to be a lost. I rolled my head to see them, but otherwise left it glued to the counter, too frustrated to lift it.

As expected, it was Alice and Rosalie who came bouncing in, discussing who knows what over the top of each other but somehow still understanding what the other said as they occasionally concurred with a simultaneous "I know right". Silently, my mother trailed them with a gentle smile. As a normally quite happy man, I recognised the look of familial contentment when I saw it. She was living her dream under this roof. It was all I wanted under my own roof with Bella.

These words should not be plaguing me the way they were…

My sisters ignored me and my customary melodramatics and instead went straight to the fridge, opposite the counter from me. They poured two glasses of something chilling in the door and went about their conversation. My mother did not ignore me.

"You okay, baby?" she asked in her usual soft voice, oozing motherly love and concern. Her fingers combed through my hair once and then she rubbed my back. I would never outgrow finding comfort in the gestures. The touch combined with her _mom_ voice was enough to make weaker men fold under the pressure and snuggle in for a hug. As it was, she blinked at me expectantly and did her best not to read the papers beneath my cheek in an attempt at privacy.

"Vows," I grumbled without moving.

"Ahh, I see." Her smile was sweet.

"Please. How hard can that be?" Alice quipped from the other side of the island.

I lifted my head long enough to shoot her a dirty look. "Incredibly hard, actually. Thank you very much."

"So, why bother? Just do the usual repeat-after-me thing."

"I don't know…because the whole 'to love and cherish till death do us part' shit seems unoriginal and out-dated. No offense," I added looking to Rosalie, remembering too late that her and my brother stuck to the script.

She laughed loudly. "Oh my god, none taken. Could you imagine what kind of embarrassing and inappropriate shit your dolt of a brother would spit out in front of all of our friends and family if left to his own devices? No thanks." She laughed and raised her palms in surrender to the very idea.

My mother gave her a subtly disapproving glance even if she knew Rosalie was completely accurate before refocusing her attention on me.

"Well, I don't think you should stress too much about it, honey. Just forget about it for now and I bet you anything you will become inspired when you least expect it sometime between now and August fourteenth. You'll see."

"Either that or you will leave it to the last minute and come up with something completely lame and ruin Bella's entire image of you," Alice remarked as she popped a blackberry into her mouth. Everyone glared at her. "What?"

"What's wrong with you tonight?" I growled at her.

"Ignore her. Her and Jasper are fighting," Rosalie supplied with a smirk.

"Oh my god, shut up, we are not!" Alice squealed.

"They totally are…in their own obnoxious way," Rosalie added.

My sister and Jasper never fought. Not in the way that Bella and I never fought–we were cut from the same cloth, we very seldom had a difference of opinion as it was, add to that our history together and if we ever did disagree we usually handled it without production. Alice and Jasper could not be any more different on a fundamental level.

The first time he came around back in high school we all worried that Alice was going through some sort of typical sixteen-year-old rebellious thing. The only, over-spoiled and attention hungry, baby girl in the family randomly brings home some boy in red pants and a leather jacket and tells us he is in a band and that they're dating. Emmett nearly dragged him out by his too-long hair on the spot.

Luckily, for everyone, Jasper turned out to be a pretty great guy. He was surprisingly quiet, yet when he actually spoke up what he managed to say was remarkably profound. He was politically and globally aware, incredibly educated, polite, and not at all materialistic. He was simple in a good way. He couldn't live without my sister and his guitar and that was about it. He was everything Alice was not and yet their oil and water seemed to settle just fine. Which basically meant that Jasper gave my sister everything she ever wanted and never seemed to mind her constant rambling.

And they were overly affectionate–less overt than Emmett and Rosalie, but equally nauseating. Or maybe everyone else was standardly affectionate and in public Bella and I had always been under-affectionate and so my spectrum was twisted…? Nothing seemed to make sense in my brain anymore as I grappled with the blank paper before me.

"What are you fighting about?" I asked knowing I was taking a risk and that the answer had the potential to be unhinged.

"We are _not _fighting." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.

"Did he walk out of the room while you were still talking?" Rosalie asked, obviously already knowing the answer.

Alice rolled her eyes. "That does _not _constitute an argument."

"It does in your world," Rosalie mumbled while taking a sip of her white wine.

Alice looked to me for back up. I had nothing. It was rapidly becoming a theme of the evening.

I scrunched my face up at her and cocked my head, clearly indicating whose side I was on. My mother giggled. That reassured me that whatever my sister and her boyfriend were _not _fighting about had to be no big deal and that the three ladies had already discussed it in detail before invading my pity party.

"Isn't he here somewhere?" I asked, because if he had bailed on the family dinner then maybe it was more serious than I thought. The idea was unsettling. As a pair they were unconventional and didn't seem too concerned with the idea of ceremony and an official certificate stating their partnership, but still, I envisioned them in it for the long haul. I found comfort in that. As I sat there on edge and overly-emotional to begin with, I was only just realising I had long ago become over-invested in their relationship and was banking on it as fact.

"Yes, of course he is. He's playing video games with Em. But he wouldn't talk to me the entire car ride here," she whined, stirring blackberries around a bowl with the tip of her finger.

"Maybe he was just wearing earplugs and didn't realise you were speaking to him," I said. The idea actually made sense as to why the man was still sane after all these years.

"Oh yeah? Well I hope you fuck up your vows," Alice barked at me, throwing a blackberry across the bar before stomping up the back stairwell so she didn't have to go through the living room and see the man in question. Rosalie grabbed Alice's wine glass and followed her up the stairs dutifully.

My mother sat on the barstool next to me and laid her head on her bent arm atop the counter, looking at me. My head was still against the paper in the exact position facing her.

"You'll be fine," she whispered softly looking into my eyes in a way not many people took the time to do with anyone anymore–actually seeing me.

"I'm no good at this shit, Ma, not the way Bella is. Her vows are going to be perfect and mine are going to sound like crap when all I want to do is pour my heart out but I don't know how."

"What are you talking about? You have always been very well spoken, Edward. You are articulate and sensitive and I'm positive you will come up with something."

"Not when it comes to this stuff. She runs circles around me with the way she can put emotion into words so easily. Everything she says is brilliant and something I would have never thought to say. She's perfect. I just don't want to disappoint her."

"I really, truly don't believe you ever could, baby." Her hand pat my knee but her eyes didn't move from mine.

"I hope your right."

Later that night, Bella came in as the family gathered in the kitchen, everyone helping set the table somehow. She had her father with her.

"Look who managed to get the night off early," she greeted everyone and nodded to the man she was locked arms with.

"I hope you don't mind me crashing the party tonight," he asked shrugging, knowing no one ever would.

"Don't be ridiculous," my mother scolded already holding another plate in her hands. She passed it to Jasper who was the closest to her. He tried to hand it to Alice who was meticulously straightening everyone's place settings. She narrowed her eyes at him and refused to take the plate. Jasper chuckled and shook his head before setting the plate down on the table himself, intentionally askew with the place mat. He smirked across the table to my sister with gleaming eyes as she scowled at him and I knew they were going to be just fine.

"Hey." Bella sidled up to me and in an instant, her elbows were atop my shoulders and her fingertips found the nape of my neck and I discovered an entirely different definition of _home_. "What's with them?" she whispered, nodding toward Alice and Jasper.

"They're fighting."

She made a worried face. I rolled my eyes dramatically and smiled down at her.

_Home._

Bella stood on her tiptoes to kiss me. Long and slow. I felt it in my toes and up my spin. Pieces of her that had long ago anchored themselves and thrived inside of me.

"Get a room," my brother bellowed into cupped hands from across the room. Bella instantly dropped flat-footed, making her six inches shorter than me. She blushed and smirked up at me, and then made a face at my brother and his obnoxiously waggling eyebrows as she rounded the bar to help out in the kitchen.

I was so fucking glad to be back in Washington. I was whole and the words were somewhere inside of me, I just needed to relax and stop searching for them. They would come to me in time.

* * *

Anyone still with me?

If you are reading this, and have read all of the millions of otherwise rambling words I have forced upon you over the last two and a half years...THANK YOU. Sincerely. There are no words for the constant enrichment and fulfilment you have brought me during this process.

Getting a review alert has to be my favourite email ever. I smile, I giggle, I get excited, I prance and dance and twirl and do some or all of those things whether I am in my own kitchen as my children eye me speculatively (as if they havent caught on by now that their mother has a screw loose) or in the grocery store line-up. You have brought me purpose and love and warmth and I am forever grateful. I recognize every one of your repeated login names and rememeber just how long you have supported me every time you review. You are a part of my life now, thank you, forever, far beyond the final posting of this simple little love story. Which obv isn't this vignette...there will be one more and then the epi.

All of my heart,

Erin

~xox~


	49. Dresses

Still playing catch-up...

This is the last of the vignettes.

The epilogue will post on the 26th now, as I will leave you (and myself) time to enjoy our families on Christmas Day. You hear that...? No hiding in the bathroom with your egg nog reading FF on your iPhones, okay? Be with the ones you love and the ones who love you back. Even if it means your aunt with too much perfume wants to hug you until you run out of air (we all hold our breath under duress like that right, it isn't just me?). Or you siblings only want to play with your new stuff and not theirs, or your kids are hopped up on too many Christmas cookies and you are contemplating if four o'clock is an acceptable holiday bedtime. Christmas (or whichever holiday you celebrate, I'm equally respectful here...) is loud, chaotic, messy, and sometimes downright stressful...but doesn't that kind of just describe daily life? Enjoy it, celebrate it, love every minute of it even the ones you hate (toddler temper tantrums at the grocery store on the 24th much...oh that DEFINITELY was me). We're here in the thick of it...thats what counts.

Myself and all other FF's will be right here waiting for you on the 26th. And there will be wedding bells in the air...get your gifts ready and your sunscreen on because summer starts on Wednesday!

* * *

The telephone in my office seldom rang at a time when I actually had the opportunity to answer it. Truthfully, it seldom rang period.

When a patient is in my office, the door remains closed. When the door is closed, a device at the latch activates and my office line is forwarded directly to voicemail. If I am consulting downstairs in the main hospital, the door is closed, the phone is forwarded. If I am up to my elbows in the never ending mountain of paperwork and legal assessment forms I have to fill out, I tended to close the door…the less distractions the better. Any patient emergencies or hospital needs would alert my pager. My friends and family phoned my cell.

On this particular day, I left before the sun was up, which was saying something for August. I hated doing that.

Bella was curled around me. Her hair hung across her bare shoulders and spilled down her back. She was warm and perfect. I played with her fingers where they were curled gently against my chest, stroking them between mine while she slept peacefully.

I dreaded the alarm. I seemed to always wake about fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to sound. I would lie there, staring at the ceiling, breathing in the quiet, preparing to drag myself forcibly away from the best comfort I had ever known. Mercifully, the alarm was now permanently situated on my side of the bed so most mornings I could silence it before it had the opportunity to wake Bella.

Sometimes, my days were long. Sometimes, depending on the hospital and my patients, they were particularly dismal. I knew the road to well mental health was, at times, puzzling and difficult, but that the end game would be rewarding for both myself and my patients. I had only just begun my practice, thus, everyone was beginning at square one. There had yet to be any major victories. I was in the thickest, most trying phase of my career, or so I hoped.

Usually, Bella was asleep when I came home. Sometimes…those moments in the dark, silent room as I rid myself from my binding shoes and clothes and snuggled under the covers to my cozy, sleeping, almost-wife, were the best fifteen minutes of my entire day. A deep, cathartic breath would escape my lungs as I folded her body around mine and kissed her. Sometimes she would wake, sometimes she would sigh happily and cuddle in closer, but stay asleep. Either way, I was a happy man. Plain and simple.

Today, a bad cup of coffee with no lid from the coffee cart on the third floor was balanced atop a clipboard full of patient charts as I carefully pushed open my office door open with my toe, staring at the coffee, trying to use the Force to keep it from tipping over. It sloshed around a bit, but I made it in safely. By early afternoon I was just tired enough to considered that a major victory in my day.

The sun was shining through the window in my office and I could faintly hear the hospital music that plumbed through the hallway outside of my wing. It was a good day despite charts and a lack of sleep. It was the last day before I took almost two complete weeks off with Bella, _my wife. _Well…she would be by then. The idea flooded my heart with warmth. There were no elaborate honeymoon plans. We were both still adjusting to our "new normal", however, we couldn't have been more excited to have time away from the daily stresses to relax and enjoy one another and our family at the end of the summer.

Just as I set the coffee and clipboard down on my desk and was about to kick my door shut, silencing the phone so I could finish up the last bits of paperwork before my time away, it rang. I didn't have a receptionist yet, she was being trained after I came back. The head administrator of the mental health wing in the hospital was all I had to filter my calls. Patients had my direct line.

"Dr. Cullen," I answered as I pinched the phone between my ear and my shoulder, organizing files on my desk at the same time.

It wasn't a patient. It was Bella. She giggled into the receiver. "Did I call your desk line? Crap, I totally didn't mean to, I'm sorry. Are you busy?"

Happiness. Just at the sound of her voice in my ear. I could picture her perfectly–the shape of her face and the curve of her smile as she laughed, her teeth that would lightly scrape her bottom lip, the magical sheen of her eyes. She sounded lighthearted and nearly giddy. I knew the feeling well. We would be married that Saturday. It was hard to even focus at work; all I could think about was marrying Isabella at long last. It wasn't a sense of possession. It was a sense of fulfillment.

"Nope, not busy at all." My words came out through a large smile that even I could hear in my own voice.

"Oh good. I just thought you might be happy to know that I just had my final dress fitting and it still fits perfectly so…that's always nice I suppose." More giggles.

"Oh yeah? I wasn't really worried about it, Bella." I blinked long and slow, still smiling. She was adorable. "So…want to tell me what it looks like now? I mean, I'm going to find out in a few days anyway, right?"

I was dying to know. I had imagined Isabella in a wedding gown for what felt like a lifetime already, always as she walks toward me down the aisle_. _But I actually had zero idea what style of dress she liked or any detail, no matter how small, of the one she chose. I desperately wanted to be able to close my eyes and envision her. Once I finally saw her on Saturday, I had a feeling the image would never leave the forefront of my memory for the rest of eternity. Forever bringing me peace.

"Well…" she began, drawing the word out playfully and I braced myself for what was sure to follow. "It's white…"

"Mmmhmm…"

"And long…"

"Okay."

"And has the most beautiful puffy sleeves and this lace turtleneck neckline that's just…classic, you know?" She could barely hold it together at the end, giggling.

Bella wasn't exactly a stereotypical giggly kind a girl, but she had been doing a lot of it lately and I couldn't help feel an odd sense of pride believing it was me and the wedding bringing the glee out in her.

"Sounds beautiful, I can't wait to see it," I laughed along with her. She had been feeding me the same bogus description for weeks.

"Oh…it is," she promised comically.

"Isabella?" There was no more playfulness in my tone as I tried to actually envision her.

"Yes?"

"You're going to be incredible."

"Thank you."

"I have to go, baby. I love you. Don't forget I'm staying late tonight to wrap all this shit up."

"But sleeping in in the morning," she added. "With me."

"Something like that…" I purred into the phone, wishing I could actually see her.

"I love you, too, Edward. I'll be waiting for you…in my puffy sleeves and taffeta"

_Perfect._

* * *

__Love me.

Air

xox


	50. Epilogue: Our Future

First, so many of you are like family; you have been with me through so much via author's notes, PM's, Twitter...hell some of you are on my Facebook and Instagram…you know my life, you are a part of it, and so with that in mind I'm sharing that the reason this is posting late. The family challenges we were facing for the last five days have come to an end. My grandmother, who I was damn near convinced was indestructible –and recognize, the woman was spunky and witty, and incredible with no signs of stopping until a week ago –is no longer with us. This isn't the platform for a eulogy, it just is what it is and I felt like sharing. Her and I were very close…

Secondly, HAPPILY, more thanks. I can't even wrap my head around the fact that I am done with this story now…DONE. All gone. Off you go into the wild little one to take care of yourself now, *pats bums* You have been there from the beginning, and even if you weren't, your reviews along the path of catching up allowed me to relive the love, the fun, the brief moments of angst, and then the thrill of success all over again through your reviews and for that, and for all of you and your blogs, and pimping, and Tweets, and FB pages and goodness…you overwhelm and bless me with your incredible generosity, I will be forever grateful.

This little tale somehow manages to tie everything off both with a tidy bow and AND with a few lingering left-to-your-imaginationisms but hey, that's just the way I roll. If you think you are (slash have been for a few chapters now if you paid attention) picking up on some subtleties that suggest certain things…you probably are. Creative interpretation trumps cheesy epilogue so…go with it.

Now to answer a few of the reoccurring questions I seem to get:

1) No, I don't have any desire to write any outtakes at this time. Everything that happened in the past for these two feels VERY past tense to me and I don't think it would be right to drag it up…right now.

2) Yes, I think that perhaps if the mood strikes me say, in six months or so, I will right a future-take just for fun. Be nice to me and we shall see. :P

3) Please don't copy, translate, repost, or otherwise re-publish this little ditty. I'm trying to recompose it just to have and to hold for my very own, a story that is all mine from start to finish just to say "I did this", but who knows what bits and pieces may make their way into a real life original novel some day…be kind to my words and my desires, please.

4) I don't plan on pulling it. Years from now when my children learn how to turn off the safe search and enter things into the Google devil…definitely, but not yet.

5) Longest AN in history just seeing if you're still reading…I'm emotional and wordsy LOVE ME THROUGH IT.

This chapter is a little different, it is a third person narrative without focus. The day is too big to miss any details, IMHO.

Grab some rice. Let's do this.

* * *

Bella awoke slowly, creeping from the blissful throes of a deep sleep. Her toes pointed and her legs flexed, elongating her body with a content groan, eyes still gently closed. Sweet visions of creamy whites, pale peaches, and grays with soft edges danced around behind her eyelids–the final traces of a delicious, comfortable dream that warmed her entire body.

She couldn't recall the details of the dream, but as she lay there, feeling the stretch and pull through her calves and the silken comfort of the sheet lying against her skin in the warm summer morning, the residual feeling throughout her body was that of a simple and complete happiness. Weightlessness, even. The light, exuberant kind of happy that made your limbs feel as if they were floating, that made your insides furl and unfurl like the soft, downy edges of angel wings, that pricked at the outer corners of your eyes, crinkling them as you smiled for no reason other than the pure sense of delight that hummed through your body. And then she remembered…

"Oh, shit! I'm getting married today!" She sat bolt upright in her bed, the softness and peacefulness of her dream abruptly forgotten as adrenaline replaced the angel feathers and spiked sharply through her veins. Her smile remained intact.

"Uhh…Yeah, you are. So maybe you could do us all a favour and get up now, Sleeping Beauty? I mean, Jesus, my fucking brother…I'm going to _murder _him!"

Bella's wide eyes scanned the room, _their room, _where she sat in bed. Alice stood over the vanity table at the far end of the room tinkering around with containers of hairpins and make-up brushes as she laid everything out in preparation. When her eyes met Bella's in the glass of the mirror, despite the harshness of her words, her eyes twinkled with delight.

"Oh, come on. I think it's kind of sweet," Rosalie cooed, startling Bella. She hadn't noticed her standing beside the bed just an arms length away, carefully draping garment bags over the back of the overstuffed baby blue arm chair in the corner of the room. The chair was Bella's favourite place to curl up with a cup of hot tea and a good book. No time for reading today.

"Please. Since when are _you_ team Edward?" Alice teased with an obnoxious tone directed toward Rosalie, smiling.

Bella had no idea what either of them was talking about. The last thing she remembered was kissing her husband-to-be goodnight at the threshold of their own front door after dinner the night before. Emmett left Rosalie behind to stay the night and brought his brother to his house–a romantic separation of the couple before the nuptials. The next time Bella would see Edward would be as he waited for her at the end of the alter.

"Are either of you going to clue me in here, or…?" Her head shook softly and a light-hearted giggle bubbled from somewhere deep inside her. The others girls giggled as well because it was going to be that kind of day.

Rosalie's long fingers wrapped delicately around Bella's wrist as she lifted it to her face for inspection. Soft gray marker was scrawled along the inside of her wrist, wrapping around to the front, coming to a full circle. Bella twisted her head and wrist around awkwardly so she could follow the words.

Edward's artful handwriting read, "The way you blush when I kiss you here". Something molten and full of love bubbled on her skin around the winding letters as she read them, and then poured through Bella's entire body, filling her toes and her fingertips to capacity.

"It's everywhere," Rosalie whispered conspiratorially, leaning in to Bella's ear.

Bella's eyes, impossibly wide though no longer from shock but from something much more intoxicating, met the tall blondes as she smiled softly down at her. She had on her warm maternal smile. Rosalie, the one who was always so sharp-tongued, feisty, and obnoxious, warring with her husband's little brother at every pass, her smile read nothing but unconditional love on this morning.

"Yeah, like _every-freaking-where,_" Alice groaned. "Clearly, the man has zero appreciation for the fact that we showered you last night so your skin wouldn't be all tacky today and your hair had a solid twelve hours to dry naturally."

Bella's smile widened. She couldn't care less about any of that.

"Come on, up you go. Back into the shower because my brother is a romantic idiot," Alice urged, reaching around Rosalie and dragging Bella from the mattress. The tee shirt, Edward's first Columbia tee shirt, a tattered grey cotton as soft as a cloud which she slept in, road up past her hips as she was dragged from the bed. On her thigh Bella was exhilarated to notice more handwriting.

Alice ushered her toward the en suite where she could already hear the shower running for her. Bella moved eagerly, anxious to strip naked in front of the mirror and see what other secret treasures her husband-to-be had hidden on her body. Sometimes it was a fun little blessing to be such a heavy sleeper.

As she padded barefoot across the wooden floors, Bella noticed in the same gentle gray marker that encircled her wrist and decorated her thigh the words "I love you", plain, simple, and familiar, along the inside of her forearm.

"Well, at least it isn't _permanent _marker this time," she mumbled more to herself than anyone as she bounced into the bathroom.

Back in the bedroom, the other girls exchanged bewildered looks.

Edward didn't know exactly what he was expecting, or even if he was expecting anything at all. Rosalie had been the pillar of fashionista perfection at his brother's wedding. Her hair had been pulled and pinned into precision–no curl out of place–her make-up was flawless–her lips bright and lashes dark–her nails were painted to match the bridesmaids teal dresses, and her heels were gleaming and high. Somehow he couldn't quite fit Bella into that mould.

Other than that, he had visions in his head of course, but they had been there long before he even had a ring in his possession. They had been there since the first time he watched her descend a flight of stairs in a different pair of heels and a dress, lips shining in gloss and a nervous blush across her cheeks sending his entire world into a tailspin. Of course, that night she had not been walking toward _him_. But this time, and every time afterward, she would be.

The rear, west facing wall of the house had been remodelled with floor-to-ceiling glass walls on an accordion track framed by stained cedar, able to be slid open stretching the entire width of the house. The deck was redone in stone with a curled staircase leading to the main grounds. A gravel and stone pathway snaked whimsically through the vibrant green grass on either side until it met a stone and cedar small bridge that leapt elegantly over the small creek that dissected the backyard, eventually trickling into the Sound.

On the other side of the bridge, the gravel path continued to a set of stone stairs, three in all, embedded against the grass as if they were naturally occurring. This led to the lower portion of the yard, where the grass disappeared over the horizon into midair with the water directly below. There had been a thick hedge along the perimeter when Edward and Bella purchased the property; it had been removed with nothing but sky to replace it. Eventually, a cedar fence would be built to preserve the safety, but for today, as Bella began to descend the staircase from the house, the backdrop behind her groom was nothing but blue sky, wispy white clouds, and waves with a Seattle skyline visible above it all.

The music changed after his sisters came to stand beside their husbands and while it wasn't Pachelbel's Canon, Edward recognised the dramatic instrumental as the indication that that the bride, _his bride, _was about to make her entrance.

His brother warned him not to eat lunch so he didn't throw up from nerves in front of everyone in this moment. Jasper poured him a shot of whiskey, calling it "liquid courage" as they laced up their shoes earlier. Even his own father advised him not to lock his knees as he stood at the end of the one hundred and twenty foot alter waiting so that his circulation wasn't impaired causing him to potentially faint.

His family meant well, and they had no way of knowing… The moment the music shifted and the crowd stood and everyone's eyes were on the rear of the house…everything inside Edward was at peace. He was in no danger of getting sick, falling down, or running away. His blood sang but it was a slow, sweet song and his pulse was a gentle, steady accompaniment. His entire life had been a slow progression toward this moment. He couldn't have been more ready or had more faith that he was exactly where he was meant to be.

He saw the top of Charlie's head over the short stonewall that ran the perimeter of the upper deck first as they approached the stairs. And then Bella slowly beside him, from that distance appearing to be nothing more than a radiant white dress with dark hair. She leaned into her father and it looked like she whispered something to him, but Edward couldn't be sure. His smile almost made his cheeks ache if he had been paying any attention to himself, which he absolutely was not.

The pair grew closer, many in the crowd of on-lookers "awe'd" as they caught their first glimpses of the bride and her gown. There were no puffy sleeves or taffeta to be found. Instead, a thin layer of unlined lace with a large vintage pattern hugged her body from top to bottom. It capped her shoulders delicately and buttoned behind her neck with a small pearl while the front dipped into a deep V. The skirt fluttered out in a delicate combination of pearl satin and white lace at her ankles. Edward immediately recognized the thin shimmer along her neck as the silver locket he gave her a long time ago, with pictures of them as children and their families as it rested perfectly against her breastbone just above the point of the V.

Her hair was entirely loose, curled in its own natural way, as if she had slept on it wet and combed it out with her fingers and nothing more. It shined a ruby-brown in the sparkling sunlight and blew about her neck and shoulders as she walked. Her skin was radiant and her smile mirrored the groom's. Edward had never before seen anything more beautiful that Isabella in this moment. His heart swelled with something akin to pride but so much deeper. Knowledge. Familiarity. Understanding. Intimacy. Every detail of their lives, the insignificant and the not so insignificant, were bound together so tightly that it was impossible to know where one ended and the other began. They all added up to the whole that encompassed Edward and Isabella in all that they were…together. The past, the present, and the future.

Their eyes met naturally, just as they always did, as Bella slowly made her way with grace over the small bridge. Her chest relaxed as if she had sighed and released a lifetime's worth of accumulated anxiety the minute she focused on Edward. This moment was real and it was finally here.

The groom's face had drifted from a broad smile to a much more serious expression. His lips a thin line and his brows narrowed as his eyes absorbed every detail of the woman he would happily be vowing his life and heart and soul to. She left the bridge and padded down the path slowly toward him. When Edward noticed her bare feet the wide smile returned and he chuckled under his breath. Perfect.

He shook his head softly once as his eyes crinkled against his laughter and he arched an eyebrow at his beautiful bride as she neared. Bella shrugged in reply and his gentle laughter continued to shake his shoulders lightly until she reached him.

"And who gives this woman to this man?" the reverend asked in his deep, sturdy voice, looking to Charlie.

"Her mother and I do," was the Chiefs reply as he gently laid Bella's small hand atop Edward's open palm. The groom's fingers curled around her while his eyes closed briefly, fighting to remain in control of his own emotions. Charlie's hand lay with Bella's for a few moments longer than perhaps it was meant to, causing her to turn to him and smile softly, blinking away her own tears.

"It's okay, Dad. We're okay," she whispered.

Her father blinked and one fat tear fell to the grass just as Edward's eyes reopened and focused on Bella's directly in front of him.

Charlie leaned in, still holding his daughter's hand which was placed inside her groom's, and with his mouth close to Edward's ear he whispered, "Continue to do everything you have always done for her now, please…Son." He swallowed thickly and removed his hand from theirs after giving them both a squeeze. He stood upright and cleared his throat uncomfortably against the ball that had developed in it.

Edward's eyes never left Bella's, but he smiled as he murmured, "Always," in response to her father.

And the reverend began.

The bride gently pinched her lip between her teeth as tears streamed down her face. Her words came beautifully, gracefully, fluidly…the way everyone expected them to. She was a gifted writer, but more than that, her heart overflowed for the man in the soft grey suit in front of her. Thus, her heart poured naturally into words that held elegance and eloquence, words that floated like silk to those listening raptly from the seats in front of her.

Bella swallowed and tried to remember to breathe as the man before her began to speak. Several sentences into his proclamation of love and dedication she recognised his beautiful, raw words for what they were…words he had promised her years before under very different circumstances. Upon reconnecting, when the future was long and unsure before them. When their foundation had been tried. When they acted with impetuousness beneath the frozen sky on Christmas Eve, rebuilding out of the ashes what was to be their new foundation, based on history, yes, but also appreciation, perspective, and promises. Now, as they stood together on their own property with everyone they loved in attendance to witness their declarations, no longer a secret, Edward's words held passion and ardour, a devoted reverence obvious to even the simplest bystander sang from his unbridled love and respect for her as he spoke.

Their tears blended against their cheeks as they met, embraced, and kissed for the first time as husband and wife while the audience applauded, and whooped and hollered, Emmett obviously being the loudest right beside his brother. Bella's cheeks coloured against her pale skin and glowing dress as she regrettably drew her lips away from her husband's but refused to move her body from his side.

As the early evening sun began to colour the sky with dusk and shades of creamy pink, guests gathered atop the upper deck for drinks and appetizers while the grounds were transformed from ceremony to reception. Twinkle lights lit up as the air grew grey, encircling a willow tree at the back of the yard, shrubs along the sides, and weaving around the trestles of the bridge. The ceremony aisle had been removed and replaced by three long rows of elegantly draped tables with rustic wooden chairs at the front portion of the yard. They sat unobstructed beneath the sky as the first stars began to poke through. Candles lined the tables, floated in the creek, and lined the stone perimeter of the upper deck where guests happily mingled.

There was no grand white tent or gleaming ballroom. Instead, there were simple cream tulle and silk runners stretched in canopy from trees and discreet wrought iron lanterns at the corners of the yard. They zigged and zagged without pattern across the sky with carved grey beachwood candelabras hanging from each intersection. Among them were lines of twine decorated with clothespins spiralling down, candid black and white photographs of the bride and groom and their family over the years pinched between their teeth.

A dance floor made of interlocking wooden tiles covered the lower portion of the yard beneath the silk ceiling where the ceremony chairs had been. A podium was perched at the back with creamy white couches and chairs in a variety of styles and fabrics hugging the perimeter invitingly, beachwood tables beside them anxiously awaiting their opportunity to hold a champagne flute or two.

Once the speeches began, guests gathered comfortably under the awnings–drinks in hand, smiles on lips, and romance in their hearts. The standard thanks were given with sincerity to everyone in attendance. Women were complimented on their grace, beauty, and extraordinary planning capabilities. Jokes were told with smiles and earnest hearts to the men, and then it was time to refocus the groom's attention.

Edward held the mic in his right hand and stared at his left as his thumb spun the new gold band that felt as if it had always been a part of him around and around while he gathered his thoughts. He felt no pressure to fill the silence. The eyes on him didn't make him anxious. A smile hinted at his lips. When he finally lifted his eyes they found his bride's magnetically and shined, from the glow of the flames, the shimmer of the twinkle lights, and the emotion in his heart. His lips curled as he addressed the crowd with his eyes never leaving his wife.

"If you know me, and since you're here I suppose you do…" Gentle laughter rose before him. "You know I have a tendency to always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I try not to, but everything seems too perfect that it scares me sometimes. Bella, I think I have wanted to marry you since I was ten. If I had to do it all to do over again, I probably _would _marry you at ten because waiting for the stars to align and this day to come has been a slow, sweet torture. It's all I've ever wanted. The word 'wife' doesn't seem all-encompassing enough to describe everything that you are, that you have always been to me, but I've waited a long time to use it so I suppose it will work. And I don't know…maybe there isn't another shoe because you are perfect, right now, and always. So many people have told me that I have it good–the perfect family, opportunity, education, career, home…and while I won't argue with them that I had a lot, I haven't had _everything_ until today when I stood before everyone we know and told them how incredibly much I adore you. That you have made my life a beautiful thing. Now, _now, _I have everything. There isn't a man in the world luckier than I am. So thank you…for being you, for being my best friend…my wife. Because…_it should be you_, Bella. I love you."

He took his seat at the most natural place in the world, beside Bella, and Edward tenderly brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, smiling softly at her. "It's okay," he whispered and the eyes on them wondered what he said, coveting their connection for it ran deeper than the average love story.

"I know," was Bella's quiet reply, and she meant it with every fibre inside her.

With gently closed eyes, the bride took a deep breath through her nose…blew it out slowly through parted lips…opened her eyes with a resolve that only the man beside her could warrant. His words had been beautiful, just as with his vows, funny, encouraging, and more than anything, she could feel every strand of his heart come through and settle somewhere inside of her as he spoke. She could do this, for him, she could do anything.

Bella stood, refusing to acknowledge the tremor in her knees or the fact that she was pretty sure her feet were numb with nerves. One hundred and thirty two people including the wedding party plus catering and event staff–that was how many people would be staring at her. One hundred and thirty one of them may as well leave, because she was only interested in speaking to one person while she stood at that platform. There were things she wanted to say that were inappropriate to be included in her vows but that should to be heard, and she could think of no better time and place than this. She bent to softly kiss her new husband and turned toward the podium. He smiled encouragingly at her with a twinkle in his narrowed eyes and squeezed her hand silently for luck.

"Bella," he called softly as she stepped away.

"Yes?"

"For the toasts." He carefully wrapped his fingers around the long stem of her champagne flute and passed it to her with a wry smile that only she understood.

Bella cleared her throat quietly as she unfolded a worn piece of paper she brought with her. The microphone amplified the sound and it startled her.

"Awesome," she grumbled and then laughed awkwardly at herself. Everyone else, including her husband, laughed with her. "Well, you all know how much I've been looking forward to this, so…" More supportive laughter. "If you could all just do me a favour and look at your laps now that would be great. Thanks."

Despite her nerves, the bride proceeded with toasts to the groomsmen and her bridesmaids, thanking everyone that made the best day of her life a possibility. She made her father tear up in front of everyone for the second time that day, which she found a slight vindication in, joking that if she had to suffer in the lime light she was going to bring a few casualties down with her. She bestowed her heart upon the Cullen's, particularly Esme and Carlisle, who in turn, wept with the pride and love one is only capable of feeling toward a child. Once everyone was in tears, Bella looked down to the moist paper in her hands.

"Well, there was no way to memorise all of this but it seemed fitting so… As you all know, I began writing in journals when I was sixteen, just as my mother had always done. Many of my most private and heartfelt thoughts became spattered against the lines of that paper and now most of them are available for purchase in your local bookstore. It's kind of like my worst nightmare come true…except…it isn't because they're words of love and family and hope and healing and that's okay, people can read that. People _should _to read that. To remember where we came from, the family that's always been there, but that might not always _be _there. On that note, I'd like to share something more.

"I didn't just begin writing after I received my mother's journals. That was when I wrote with consistency but as a kid I always saw her writing in her notebooks and I would ask what she was doing. _'Just writing about my day,' _she would always say. 'Why?' I would ask because at five years old the answer wasn't obvious. _"Oh, because you never know when the reminder of what today held could be important," _was always her answer. At the time, I can't say that necessarily cleared up my confusion but…I get it now."

Bella had to pause as the last word broke out of her heart and clawed at her throat and she choked on the single syllable into the microphone, amplified so no one had the chance of missing it. Eyes were on her but the air was silent. Crickets were out, it as summer after all, and they seemed fitting. The tide lapped at the dock below the property from the Sound and somewhere, someone cleared their throat to fill the space.

Bella's eyes were on the piece of paper. As she blinked, tears splashed against the sheet and she gave herself a pep talk as she pictured her mother's smiling face for the thousandth time that day, encouraging her to follow her heart. Fifteen feet away, her groom looked as if his own heart had been ripped from his chest as he watched helplessly while it was tested before him, knowing the layers of bittersweet emotions this day carried for so many people, not the least of which was his bride. He began to stand but Bella stopped him. Her head was turned, her words aimed for him but the microphone directed them across the lawn.

"It's okay. _I'm _okay. If I can just get through this I swear there's some humour coming…" Everyone laughed lightly because there was nothing else to do. They loved the woman before them, they were not uncomfortable, they just loved her. The groom's mother wiped tears from her cheeks with a handkerchief and her husband squeezed the top of her knee.

"So," Bella began again. "I would often sit beside my mother on the couch, or at the kitchen table, and I would write about my own day. I think the first few times I couldn't actually write words, but eventually I could. Most of the time I think the papers were converted into rainbows and houses, or horses that looked like one-legged dogs because as Edward always pointed out I kind of suck at drawing." Laughter. Catharsis. "Sometimes my mother would ask if she could save what I wrote, and sometimes, even after she was gone, I would sit at the kitchen table and pretend she was with me writing in her book while I wrote in mine. I couldn't always find what I wrote later if I went back and looked for it. I never thought twice about that until I was given her journals in a box years later. At the bottom of the box were several scraps of paper, some written with blue crayon and some with a pencil. They were ripped and had really _awesome _margin drawings," her eyes sliced across the room and narrowed on her husband with a grin, "and they were mine. They were old. They were what gave me the idea to follow in my mom's footsteps and journal properly from that day forward. Because you never know when the reminder of today could be important…"

The paper rustled into the mic and one hundred and thirty one people were enraptured with the blushing bride's every breath. "She would get a kick out of me reading these. I think she would be proud…

"May 12th, 1991, seven years old. 'Today a boy at school tried to kiss me on the playground. It was really gross. He pulled my hair and I lost my favourite white hair bow the one with the blue dots on it because of running away from him. Kissing is gross. I will never let a boy kiss me, not ever. Then after lunch I couldn't find Edward. I looked everywhere. I even lied to Mrs. Leung later and asked if I could go to the bathroom so I could sneak a look in his classroom but he wasn't in his chair. After school he met me in the hallway so we could walk home together like always, but he came from down the hall, _not _his classroom. He had my hair bow and a detention slip and he wouldn't tell me how he got either.'

October 27th 1995, eleven years old. 'Today I did a bad thing. I lied. But I don't really feel bad about it. Does that make me a bad person? After school, Edward accidently bumped into Alice's pumpkin, the one that her and her mom spent so long carving the other night. It fell off the banister and broke in half. He tried to balance it together and said it was perfect and no one would notice. Except that his mom and dad did notice when it fell apart later that night when dad came to get me and he bumped into the railing while we were leaving. Alice cried and I told them I broke it. I told them it was an accident but I don't think they believed me. I heard dad on the phone after dinner when I was supposed to be brushing my teeth. He was talking to Edwards's dad and he asked if I was "acting out" because of mom. I don't know what that means and I hope I'm not in too big of trouble. But even if I am, I guess that's okay, because at least Edward isn't.'

October 1st 1997, thirteen years old. 'Today was stupid. Everything about it was stupid. I tripped getting into dad's car and ripped a hole in the knee of my favourite jeans. I had to go inside and change them and I guess I will have to throw them out now because I doubt dad knows how to sew. I was late to school and I got detention for it and then I took a math test which I am pretty sure I failed because math is stupid. I don't care how much Mrs. Reid tells us it is important I am pretty sure knowing the square root of pi will never be relevant to my real life no matter what I choose to do with it. School is _not _real life. School and everyone in it is stupid. Then when I went to go to bed there was a stupid giant spider in my bedroom and dad was already asleep on the couch and I didn't want to wake him up but I was too scared to get into bed and sleep with a spider crawling around over my face. Knowing my luck it would fall on me and I would probably swallow it but only after it bit me. I called Edward because I know he doesn't go to bed as early as me and he isn't afraid of spiders. I don't know if he is afraid of anything because he never says he is. He came over and killed it for me and then stayed and talked for a long time because I wasn't tired anymore after that. So I guess not everything about the day was stupid. But spiders and math still are.'

November 25th 1999, fifteen years old. 'Today is Thanksgiving. Mom always sucked at cooking Thanksgiving dinner but I wish she was still here to burn the top of the sweet potato pie and set off the smoke alarm again. Sometimes, I miss her so much I don't think I can even cry any more. The skin on my cheeks hurts even when I am not doing anything but sitting here. Air hurts. We ate dinner with the Cullen's like we usually do. It was nice except when Emmett was being obnoxious with a Nerf ball gun at the dinner table until dad told him to put it away or he would get out _his_ gun and Emmett would lose. Emmett behaved much better after that. At dinner everyone went around the table to say what they were thankful for and when it got to my turn I burst into tears. Everyone was looking at me and I felt stupid for it. They skipped my turn. Edward held my hand under the table the rest of the night after that, even though it meant he had to eat left-handed. It made me feel better. He always makes me better. I wish I would have said I am the most thankful for Edward.'

"And from the final chapter in the book I co-wrote with my mother. 'Mom, so much has changed between _then _and _now, _would you even recognise me if you were still here? Am I the same little girl you always knew? Sometimes, I feel lost without you, like my guiding light burned out too early and I'm left grappling in the dark searching for you, or the exit, or unknown things in between… But I think you would know me. I think my heart beats the same way and my breath falls in a familiar pattern you spent so many hours studying. I'm grown but that's because, if there's one thing I've learned over the last twenty seven years it's that I can't stop time, or slow it, or change it…it just goes, and if I don't watch my every step, I may not like where I find myself. But be at peace, Mom, I learned to guide myself, trust myself, follow my heart the way you always told me to, and be happy. Oh, Mom, I'm so happy. Somewhere, I know that pleases you–that you look down on me, probably with a smug smile, and know how absolutely and wholly my heart has been cared for. I have everything I have ever wanted, everything you begged me to find. I didn't have to look far for it but I will cherish it for the rest of my life as if I had to walk the lengths of the Earth for it because I would without hesitation. I'm thankful that, although you taught me through written words, you blessed me with appreciation for this life and everything in it. I'm thankful for the family I still have, extended, blood, and otherwise, because the people I am surrounded with daily are miraculous and their love overflows me. But, without any uncertainty, and for the rest of my life, I will always be the most thankful for Edward."

The key to a great wedding speech is first and foremost, not to run so long that the crowd tires of your voice, secondly, to involve a bit a humour when appropriate, and finally, to make your words count so that everyone listening truly feels them. Bella was successful on all accounts. The eyes that looked upon her now as she folded up her paper as quietly as she could, her own eyes downcast, were no longer dry. Many wept openly, smiling and holding their hands over their hearts, while other sniffed discreetly and dodged eye contact with everyone near them. The look on her groom's face was a mixture of love, pride and duty. It wasn't a fluke, or even fate that he had always been there when she needed him; it was his choice. It was precisely where he always wanted to be. The same could be said in reverse, and he was proud of her, of her battles and victories, her strength, perseverance and independence. Still, he would never stop being the one to hold her hand under the table even when she didn't need it. He adored her, perhaps never more than in that moment.

Bella finished folding the paper, tucked it into her palm and looked up into the eyes of her friends and family, settling on Edward. "Some things never change," she whispered. "I love you."

Edward's lips repeated the sentiment quietly. He stood from his seat as she approached the head table once more. Others may have been clapping. Jasper, who was the event emcee, may have been clearing his throat into the microphone announcing something else with humour as an emotional counterbalance tactic. The bride and groom were unaware of anything outside of themselves.

Edward's hands reached up slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. Bella blinked but didn't look away. Eye contact with Edward was different than with anyone else–it was comfortable, vital even. His chest rose and fell and his lips were a straight line, he often got this look about him when he was dead serious about something, Bella noted as she took in every small detail about the man before her. His palm slid against her jaw and beneath her hair, twirling his fingertips gently into it. His forehead was almost connected to hers as he stood and breathed her in, words weren't always necessary between the two of them and besides, words for how he felt in that moment had yet to be invented. His eyes drifted down her body and when they came back up to meet hers again there was a smile on his lips. It broadened by the second until it reached his eyes and their corners crinkled and they shone. Bella leaned in and kissed him; slow and steadily while somewhere behind them howls and the obnoxious clinking of silverware against crystal could be heard. When they separated they were both a little out of breath. Remembering where she was, Bella's cheeks pinkened and she hid her face behind Edward's shoulder, giggling. Her groom took her full champagne glass from her hand and returned it to the table for her.

They didn't have anywhere to go. Esme worried it would feel anticlimactic if the couple stayed in their own home following the ceremony and Alice pouted over the lost opportunity to be shuttled via limousine to a glitzy hotel across the Sound, but the pair wasn't worried about either of those things, nor anything else for that matter. They hugged guests as the slowly trickled off the dance floor, out of dining chairs, or peeled themselves from the lavish furnishings under the stars, and clicked in heels and dress shoes over the cobblestones against the side of the house to the front where cars filled the driveway and lined the streets. Yellow permits fluttered in the midnight breeze against their staples attached to wooden telephone poles along the road and hired men in vests and white shirtsleeves carefully returned vehicles to awaiting guests. People basked in the lamplight and the starlight, alcohol and good food content within their bodies, murmuring happily to one another about the beautiful simplicity of the event while they waited. Women's arms snaked languidly underneath dress jackets and men stood with shiny, strappy heels dangling from their fingers.

Inside the house, seated at the bar and circling the kitchen busily, the wedding party sipped from their drinks and conversed cheerfully. Weddings had a way of funnelling infectious love into the air. Kisses and sighs of contentment came in abundance as rental dishes were stacked back into crates and linens were folded and set on the dining table in plastic bags waiting to be picked up the following day.

"Leave them. It can all be done tomorrow," Esme whispered, desperately afraid one of two, or possibly even endless, things would happen should her voice elevate. Firstly, she would disrupt the peaceful fairy-tale feel the evening had taken on, or perhaps she would disrupt the man and women, curled together on one of the many creamy white couches on the lower portion of the yard beneath the moon.

Her husband silently set down the stack of glasses he was collecting and smiled in the direction of the bride and groom. Their gentle laughter floated around with the breeze. Esme blinked and tears slid against her cheeks. Hands freed from duties, Carlisle cupped her face, smiling into his wife's watery eyes, and brushed them aside with his thumbs.

"Esme?" It sounded questioning but really…it wasn't. "We did good. And those two…well…" The sentence lingered in the air with limitless possibilities.

"It's been an honour to witness," his wife finished for him.

"That's an understatement."

They smiled together, and under the blanket of the warm air and the stars, they shared a simple, comfortable kiss. They felt weightless. There was a small amount of giddy freedom that came along with knowing your children had found love, companionship, and safety in their adult lives.

Edward gently used the thumb and middle finger of his right hand to loosen his tie and pop open the top three buttons of his dress shirt. He wasn't sure if he was exhausted or just utterly relaxed. His left arm was draped against the side of his bride as she lay curled against him, wedding gown hiked up to the middle of her thighs, still barefoot. His head rested against the top of the sofa and he stared absently into the night sky. The stars twinkled brilliantly down at them.

"Today was perfect," Bella whispered, thinking that word didn't even begin to describe it. Her head was tucked against his chest while her fingers combed back and forth lazily against Edward's thigh. Her eyes were fixated on the rings adorning her left hand. As she spoke, Edward's weight shifted slightly and she could feel the gentle, reassuring weight of his chin against the top of her head. His fingers stroked her bare arm.

"It was."

Bella knew him. She knew every inch of muscle and sinew that created his body, every freckle, the angle of his nose, the texture of his lips. She knew his breathing–when it was content, when it was excited, when it was fearful, when it was sorrowful. She knew his mind–how it dominated him, had a tendency to spiral in both good and bad times, how it had a direct line to his heart and that every thought reverberated back and forth between the two, amplifying with each passage. She knew his voice–the way it floated across her skin when he whispered words of adoration and passion, the way it wavered when his emotions were pulled tight, the way it cracked in anger, and the way it tightened under the gravity of his thoughts.

She easily read every emotion, every thought, and every nuance behind the two simple words Edward whispered back in reply as if she had been handed a script to his heart and his mind. She lifted her head from his chest, her lower lip caught between her teeth as her eyes sought out his. She blinked against the wetness collecting in her eyes. It wasn't sadness, it was…where were the proper words for all of this, for everything that had ever happened to her, to him, to _them_? The words that meant love, honour, commitment, but that meant _more…._always so much more. More in their hearts. More in every finger that ever caressed skin.

She lifted herself from the couch and resettled atop his lap, facing him. The soft smile on Edward's parted lips was her whole world in that moment as he welcomed her new position. It said everything that his two small words did not. He was happy. Truly happy. He felt it at the centre of his bones, it flooded his heart, it warmed the tips of his toes, and flushed his cheeks, the tops of his ears, and his lips. He had everything he had ever wanted cradled atop his legs in that moment.

His palms began at her neck, his thumbs with the slightest pressure, pressing into the flesh of her shoulder before sliding against her bare arms, to her sides, burying his fists into the dress gathered at her hips as she sat astride him. Perhaps their family and close friends were still somewhere on the property tidying up, or perhaps they had made a quiet exit hours before. Neither of them could be sure. They couldn't have told you if it was midnight or four thirty in the morning. There was nothing and everything all at once but time really wasn't a part of the equation.

Edward's chest rose and fell with increasing vigour, as their eyes remained locked, and Bella knew… She wasn't at all surprised when his eyelids lowered slowly down her body and upon lifting, seeing hers and getting lost in them, moisture slipped over his lower lids and decorated his cheeks the moment he blinked. His fingers twisted deeper into the soft fabric and he used it to pull her tighter against him. Never close enough.

"I'm right here." Bella bent to him, her lips brushed his with her words. "I'm never going anywhere, Edward. Not ever." His chest stuttered against hers, and though she was too close to see it, she felt it. It was all she needed to fall over the edge with him. Because where he went she followed.

Soon it wasn't obvious whose tears were smearing against whose cheeks as their lips worked together slowly, lovingly, salt on their tongues. Edward's fingers slid over her back, desperate for warm skin, forcing his way beneath the delicate fabric, holding her closer so that when he inhaled, her body rose against his chest. His tongue ran along her lower lip and his other hand pushed under the bunched hem of her gown. He took a breath and Bella's lips found the soft spot where his neck met his collar bone and she kissed him gently, her heart pouring from her body into his, more with every second that seamlessly clicked by. Edward's head rolled dreamily against the back of the sofa.

"Your dress is getting wrinkled," he murmured, eyes closed, enjoying the feather light feel of his wife's lips against his skin as she worked open more buttons down his front.

"I don't plan on wearing it to the grocery store tomorrow," she joked, smirking up at him even if he wasn't looking back at her. His quiet laughter shook her against him and she giggled before pushing against his knees to raise herself to the ground in front of him. Without a word, she freed the pearl from its clasp behind her neck and pushed the shoulders of her dress off, letting it cascade to the ground around her feet. The wind blew her hair around her shoulders.

Edward let out a slow, steady breath. She was radiant. She was everything good in his entire life right from the beginning. She was his home and his happiness. His heart and everything that filled it.

His eyes narrowed on her and she knew that look. She didn't flush under the weight of his gaze; it was comfortable as his eyes moved across her skin. His tongue wet his lips and she braced herself for either action or words, either were sure to move in a direction she was very familiar with. A smile spread across her lips.

Edward stood, gently wrapped his hands around her hips and lifted her squealing little form over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she giggled, folding over him. Her fingers toyed with the hair at the base of his neck.

"Taking you home."

The house was empty–bright and littered with the remnants of a really good party, but fortunately, there were no people to be found. Edward took the stairs carefully, still balancing his wife over his shoulder, his hands holding excessively firm in places that were not necessarily appropriate but Bella would not be complaining. She laughed and untucked his shirt from his pants, drumming her hands against his back playfully until they reached their bedroom.

At the foot of their bed Edward slowed down. His fingers, where they had been digging into muscle keeping his wife safely balanced, became softer, his breathing changed, and Bella _knew_…everything that was in his heart, always.

His right knee sank into the mattress as he steadied himself against it, slowly lowering his bride to the bed. She unfolded before him, bare except the lavishly white lace undergarments against her porcelain skin. The lights from downstairs filtered up and cast unfamiliar angles in the dimly illuminated bedroom. Slowly, with a purpose, Edward crawled onto the bed, hovering over Bella.

"…a long time in the making, Isabella," he murmured, finishing an unspoken thought aloud.

"I love you," was her simple response. Nothing more was necessary.

He took his time, slowly kissing his way down her body. Her fingers twisted into his hair as he lowered himself down her frame. His hands felt warm against her sides and her head sank heavily into the softness of the pillow, letting it absorb her while she handed her self over to her husbands will.

Edward hadn't noticed until his eyes were directly above it. His heart and eyes flooded in an instant, his wife's soft fingertips danced over his skin. In the dim lighting his lips kissed softly over the words written in his own gray scrawl across his wife's lower abdomen.

_Our future_.

* * *

Love me.

I love you.

Thank you.

For every word you have ever blessed me with.

Forever.

Air

~XOX~


End file.
